• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

If someone wrongs you, don't just gossip and complain about it. Confront them! You'll feel better!

VAL0R

Banned
Not many of us like confrontation, myself included. But sometimes we have to be bold and have a little courage and confront someone who wrongs us (with firmness, wisdom, and kindness). If we only gossip and complain we will grow more unhappy and find ourselves fostering unjust unforgiveness and uncharitable attitudes and feelings unbecoming of a good neighbor that most of us would like to be. First of all, the offender may be ignorant of the degree to which they have done wrong and/or offended us. So we may literally have to educate them as to how and why we are offended. Openly and honestly discussing the injury allows an exchange of viewpoints, explanation, apology, closure, reconciliation, and peace.

My wife and I had to confront two different neighbors recently regarding their offensive behavior and I am so glad that we did.

Situation 1) My wife and I are devout Roman Catholics with a large family. We are also political conservatives who support Trump. My next-door neighbor "Lisa" hates Trump. That's OK, we still love her. More and more we started to notice that she was openly criticizing Trump in front of our kids, but not in front of us. I love to discuss politics and I would welcome any discussion she would like to have with my wife and I about the matter, but don't try to proselytize my small children to your politics behind my back. That's inappropriate. Well, my wife ordered some small Trump flags online. When we got them in the mail, my little guy (6) thought they looked neat and stuck them in the handlebars of his Spider-Man bike along with a US flag. As he was riding around, Lisa saw him and told him that Trump was a bad man. He came home and told us. This is when I knew we might have a problem that would need addressing. Then more recently my daughter (barely a teen) was over at Lisa's house playing with her nieces. Lisa again said that Trump was bad, asked her to defend the good that he has done and worst of all said that my wife posts "terrible things" on Facebook, including something to do with blood being poured on a Democrat, I believe. Well, my wife never posts anything gory, so we have no idea what the blood is a reference to. But the fact that Lisa was accusing my wife of doing evil (posting "terrible things") was a bridge too far. My wife called me at work. We agreed that she should confront the problem head-on. My wife walked over to Lisa's porch and kindly told her that she did not appreciate that my daughter was falsely told her mother posts bad things and that if Lisa had any politics she wanted to discuss with my family going forward, it was to be with my wife and I and not our children. Lisa agreed that she wouldn't do it anymore and that she didn't intend for it to go so far. Boom, problem solved, and still good neighbors.

Situation 2) My neighbor "Joe" is filling his pool. My other neighbor "Sue" had construction work done, including tearing up a concrete foundation. Joe told Sue she could fill his pool with the concrete construction debris. Unfortunately for me, hundreds of pounds of broken concrete, dirt, and stones were dumped in a lightly wooded area on my property, which borders Joe's. I have to admit that when I first saw this I was really hot. I didn't understand why someone would dump all of this crap on my property. I knocked on Joe's door and asked him about the property line and if he knew what the rocks were about (I assumed he didn't). He told me that they were meant for his pool and that he would take care of them. Months go by and the pile is still there. I don't blame Joe that much because he is older and this is heavy stuff and he probably had no clue Sue was going to have this pile dumped on my property instead of his. I tell Joe I will work on it. I've never met or even seen Sue (her property roadside is on another street, our back yards only touch at the corners and I have over an acre of land). On one of my days off, I have my three oldest boys go out with me to work on it. Then I notice rotten vegetables on and around the rocks. Now someone is tossing veggies over the fence and I'm hot again. Now I know I have to confront Sue. I have to establish that I have been wronged and that she will respect my property boundary going forward. No more rocks, veggies, or anything else comes over the fence. I spend a good chunk of time throwing concrete into a wheelbarrow and hauling it slightly uphill about 25 yards into Joe's pool. I pick up the veggies and put them in the trash.

We finally get the pile down, rake the area flat, and leave a neat stack of about 20 big pieces. I decide (at the time) Sue will get those. Three of them are 100+ lbs. each and we were tired and I wasn't about to have one of my boys get a hernia moving this stuff at this point. I send my oldest to ride his bike down the street and knock on her front door and tell her that his dad is in the back wanting to talk to her. Nobody answers. A day or so later I walk back to the area. I see her dogs out. They start barking at me through the fence. I hope this will get her attention and it does. When I see her, I call her over. I introduce myself. I ask her about the pile of concrete on my property. She explains it was for Joe's pool. I said that was fine but this was my land and not Joe's and I gave no such dumping permission. I tell her that my boys and I have already removed hundreds of pounds of rock and she will have to take care of the rest with the bucket loader or whatever it was her crew used to dump them there in the first place. I ask her about the vegetables. She openly admits to throwing them over too, with some embarrassment.

She asks if she can wait for the weekend to get the remaining pile of stones. I told her no rush, but if they are still there by the end of October, we will have to talk again. I told her I appreciated her honesty in admitting she threw the vegetables over and that she seemed to be taking my concerns seriously. I said that my main concern is not the remaining rocks, but that there be no more dumping violating my property lines in the future. I said I wanted to remain good neighbors and be friends. I said that because she was so receptive I would probably work on the rocks even more for her. The next day I have off, I go out with my oldest son and discover almost all of the remaining rocks are now gone. Sue talked to Joe, who worked on it more. My oldest and I carefully put each of the remaining 3 giant rocks into the wheelbarrow and take one trip at a time to Joe's pool. Joe was very appreciative. He gave my boys $50.00 in gift cards for pizza for all of their efforts. Joe is happy, I'm happy and Sue now understands that she must respect our property line and that while I felt wronged, I worked to resolve the issue and wanted to be a good neighbor to her, and all was forgiven. Problem solved.
 
Last edited:
Good on you for being direct.

Catholics and Christians are often painted in a very passive light; but even Jesus was direct and assertive with the Pharisees who wronged him. There's nothing wrong with being clear about your intentions.
 

Tesseract

Banned
No one has the guts to listen to me
source.gif
 

nush

Member
Not many of us like confrontation, myself included. But sometimes we have to be bold and have a little courage and confront someone who wrongs us (with firmness, wisdom, and kindness). If we only gossip and complain we will grow more unhappy and find ourselves fostering unjust unforgiveness and uncharitable attitudes and feelings unbecoming of a good neighbor that most of us would like to be. First of all, the offender may be ignorant of the degree to which they have done wrong and/or offended us. So we may literally have to educate them as to how and why we are offended. Openly and honestly discussing the injury allows an exchange of viewpoints, explanation, apology, closure, reconciliation, and peace.

My wife and I had to confront two different neighbors recently regarding their offensive behavior and I am so glad that we did.

Situation 1) My wife and I are devout Roman Catholics with a large family. We are also political conservatives who support Trump. My next-door neighbor "Lisa" hates Trump. That's OK, we still love her. More and more we started to notice that she was openly criticizing Trump in front of our kids, but not in front of us. I love to discuss politics and I would welcome any discussion she would like to have with my wife and I about the matter, but don't try to proselytize my small children to your politics behind my back. That's inappropriate. Well, my wife ordered some small Trump flags online. When we got them in the mail, my little guy (6) thought they looked neat and stuck them in the handlebars of his Spider-Man bike along with a US flag. As he was riding around, Lisa saw him and told him that Trump was a bad man. He came home and told us. This is when I knew we might have a problem that would need addressing. Then more recently my daughter (barely a teen) was over at Lisa's house playing with her nieces. Lisa again said that Trump was bad, asked her to defend the good that he has done and worst of all said that my wife posts "terrible things" on Facebook, including something to do with blood being poured on a Democrat, I believe. Well, my wife never posts anything gory, so we have no idea what the blood is a reference to. But the fact that Lisa was accusing my wife of doing evil (posting "terrible things") was a bridge too far. My wife called me at work. We agreed that she should confront the problem head-on. My wife walked over to Lisa's porch and kindly told her that she did not appreciate that my daughter was falsely told her mother posts bad things and that if Lisa had any politics she wanted to discuss with my family going forward, it was to be with my wife and I and not our children. Lisa agreed that she wouldn't do it anymore and that she didn't intend for it to go so far. Boom, problem solved, and still good neighbors.

Situation 2) My neighbor "Joe" is filling his pool. My other neighbor "Sue" had construction work done, including tearing up a concrete foundation. Joe told Sue she could fill his pool with the concrete construction debris. Unfortunately for me, hundreds of pounds of broken concrete, dirt, and stones were dumped in a lightly wooded area on my property, which borders Joe's. I have to admit that when I first saw this I was really hot. I didn't understand why someone would dump all of this crap on my property. I knocked on Joe's door and asked him about the property line and if he knew what the rocks were about (I assumed he didn't). He told me that they were meant for his pool and that he would take care of them. Months go by and the pile is still there. I don't blame Joe that much because he is older and this is heavy stuff and he probably had no clue Sue was going to have this pile dumped on my property instead of his. I tell Joe I will work on it. I've never met or even seen Sue (her property roadside is on another street, our back yards only touch at the corners and I have over an acre of land). On one of my days off, I have my three oldest boys go out with me to work on it. Then I notice rotten vegetables on and around the rocks. Now someone is tossing veggies over the fence and I'm hot again. Now I know I have to confront Sue. I have to establish that I have been wronged and that she will respect my property boundary going forward. No more rocks, veggies, or anything else comes over the fence. I spend a good chunk of time throwing concrete into a wheelbarrow and hauling it slightly uphill about 25 yards into Joe's pool. I pick up the veggies and put them in the trash.

We finally get the pile down, rake the area flat, and leave a neat stack of about 20 big pieces. I decide (at the time) Sue will get those. Three of them are 100+ lbs. each and we were tired and I wasn't about to have one of my boys get a hernia moving this stuff at this point. I send my oldest to ride his bike down the street and knock on her front door and tell her that his dad is in the back wanting to talk to her. Nobody answers. A day or so later I walk back to the area. I see her dogs out. They start barking at me through the fence. I hope this will get her attention and it does. When I see her, I call her over. I introduce myself. I ask her about the pile of concrete on my property. She explains it was for Joe's pool. I said that was fine but this was my land and not Joe's and I gave no such dumping permission. I tell her that my boys and I have already removed hundreds of pounds of rock and she will have to take care of the rest with the bucket loader or whatever it was her crew used to dump them there in the first place. I ask her about the vegetables. She openly admits to throwing them over too, with some embarrassment.

She asks if she can wait for the weekend to get the remaining pile of stones. I told her no rush, but if they are still there by the end of October, we will have to talk again. I told her I appreciated her honesty in admitting she threw the vegetables over and that she seemed to be taking my concerns seriously. I said that my main concern is not the remaining rocks, but that there be no more dumping violating my property lines in the future. I said I wanted to remain good neighbors and be friends. I said that because she was so receptive I would probably work on the rocks even more for her. The next day I have off, I go out with my oldest son and discover almost all of the remaining rocks are now gone. Sue talked to Joe, who worked on it more. My oldest and I carefully put each of the remaining 3 giant rocks into the wheelbarrow and take one trip at a time to Joe's pool. Joe was very appreciative. He gave my boys $50.00 in gift cards for pizza for all of their efforts. Joe is happy, I'm happy and Sue now understands that she must respect our property line and that while I felt wronged, I worked to resolve the issue and wanted to be a good neighbor to her, and all was forgiven. Problem solved.

For neighbors sure you have to address problems quickly and politely. Sitting and fuming about something will just make things worse when the issues come to a head. You're stuck with each other and there's no walking away or going home.

Unfortunately that approach is not one size fits all and for example might not work so well in the workplace where there may be multiple people wanting to give opinions or take sides on a situation.
 

EverydayBeast

ChatGPT 0.1
It’s not about confronting it’s about having belief in yourself and taking the moment, don’t down yourself if you open yourself to learning and have confidence in taking results from your actions it’s something that will hit with a lot of people.
 

jufonuk

not tag worthy
Good on you for being direct.

Catholics and Christians are often painted in a very passive light; but even Jesus was direct and assertive with the Pharisees who wronged him. There's nothing wrong with being clear about your intentions.
jesus flipped the mother fucking table in the temple... christ was like... fuck this shit. not in me old man's house.....
 
D

Deleted member 1159

Unconfirmed Member
One time I asked a neighbor in an apartment building to turn his music down because we couldn’t sleep and he did. It was glorious.
 

VAL0R

Banned
I wish my problems were minuscule issues with my neighbours.
I didn't say these were my life's greatest problems. I only used two very recent examples where openly confronting someone who offended me had immediately positive outcomes, to illustrate my point that gossiping is worthless and honest confrontation gets results.
 
Last edited:

VAL0R

Banned
Unfortunately that approach is not one size fits all and for example might not work so well in the workplace where there may be multiple people wanting to give opinions or take sides on a situation.
There may be situations at work where confronting someone honestly about a particular issue could be unwise. For example, if they are a superior and you expect retaliation it might be better to bypass the individual and report the problem to the Human Resources department. But there are countless examples in the workplace where open confrontation is the best course of action and virtually none where merely gossiping and complaining about someone to a coworker is helpful.

As a Christian, I view gossip as sin. I have to admit that I gossip too much in the workplace and I hate this about myself. It's very easy to wait until Bob leaves after shift change to complain about what a lazy slob he is and vent frustration that he didn't do his job properly, causing more work for others. Pulling Bob aside and saying, "Hey man, we need to talk about your poor turnarounds" is so much harder and let's be honest, takes way more courage. I have heard guys at work, numerous times, hear gossip about them get back to them, and then their response is often something like, "he didn't have the guts to say this to my face?" They clearly would have had more respect for the individual if they were directly confronted. This is something I need to work on and I hope to improve about myself, by the grace of God.

Let me give one example where someone failed to confront me, and it proved to be a mistake. I am a doodler by nature and almost every day at work the daily task list template I made for myself has little drawings on it (this is relevant to the following story). My relationship with a former supervisor was going downhill for various reasons (I won't get into the whole sad saga now). But after about a year into the clear decline of our relationship, I was alone in his office for a meeting. I asked him why he seems to have been unhappy with me for the last year. My manager said that during a meeting he noticed I was drawing a mocking portrait of him. He saw me show it to my brother who smiled at me, joining in on the mockery of him.

The problem is it never happened! I have never drawn him in my life. I think I know the character I was drawing during that meeting. The character has a mask, which could be interpreted as a bald head. My manager was bald and I suspect this may have been a sensitive issue for him. I wouldn't be surprised if my brother smiled at one of my goofy cartoons, because, why not? I told my manager that, 'I don't know what you are talking about but it never happened. I have never drawn you in my life. I'm sorry if my drawing during our meeting seemed disrespectful. I do this as a nervous habit and if we go across the road, you can see that my notes for today are probably already covered in drawings and markings. And why would I mock you, in front of you? And why didn't you ask me of this earlier?' So the man was angry at me for a year for something I never even did because he failed to simply pull me aside and have an open discussion.
 
Last edited:

Mistake

Gold Member
Part of confronting people is offering solutions. Depending on the situation this can border on the line of repercussions, but it’s important to offer something to appear more reasonable. It sounds like you know what you’re doing VAL0R VAL0R . It’s unfortunate that most people would rather talk behind your back, which also grates me to no end.
 

Greedings

Member
I didn't say these were my life's greatest problems. I only used two very recent examples where openly confronting someone who offended me had immediately positive outcomes, to illustrate my point that gossiping is worthless and honest confrontation gets results.

I get that your examples show nice outcomes, but they’re examples of the kind of problems and upper middle class person with no problems has.

I would be more interested in hearing how confrontation overcame real problems. I have tried confronting people with problems many times, and it has often made things worse. People getting offended and doubling down.

Not saying confrontation doesn’t work, it does, but it’s a little more nuanced than your examples demonstrate. Still good to show your kids that standing up for themselves is important.
 

GeorgPrime

Banned
Not many of us like confrontation, myself included. But sometimes we have to be bold and have a little courage and confront someone who wrongs us (with firmness, wisdom, and kindness). If we only gossip and complain we will grow more unhappy and find ourselves fostering unjust unforgiveness and uncharitable attitudes and feelings unbecoming of a good neighbor that most of us would like to be. First of all, the offender may be ignorant of the degree to which they have done wrong and/or offended us. So we may literally have to educate them as to how and why we are offended. Openly and honestly discussing the injury allows an exchange of viewpoints, explanation, apology, closure, reconciliation, and peace.

My wife and I had to confront two different neighbors recently regarding their offensive behavior and I am so glad that we did.

Situation 1) My wife and I are devout Roman Catholics with a large family. We are also political conservatives who support Trump. My next-door neighbor "Lisa" hates Trump. That's OK, we still love her. More and more we started to notice that she was openly criticizing Trump in front of our kids, but not in front of us. I love to discuss politics and I would welcome any discussion she would like to have with my wife and I about the matter, but don't try to proselytize my small children to your politics behind my back. That's inappropriate. Well, my wife ordered some small Trump flags online. When we got them in the mail, my little guy (6) thought they looked neat and stuck them in the handlebars of his Spider-Man bike along with a US flag. As he was riding around, Lisa saw him and told him that Trump was a bad man. He came home and told us. This is when I knew we might have a problem that would need addressing. Then more recently my daughter (barely a teen) was over at Lisa's house playing with her nieces. Lisa again said that Trump was bad, asked her to defend the good that he has done and worst of all said that my wife posts "terrible things" on Facebook, including something to do with blood being poured on a Democrat, I believe. Well, my wife never posts anything gory, so we have no idea what the blood is a reference to. But the fact that Lisa was accusing my wife of doing evil (posting "terrible things") was a bridge too far. My wife called me at work. We agreed that she should confront the problem head-on. My wife walked over to Lisa's porch and kindly told her that she did not appreciate that my daughter was falsely told her mother posts bad things and that if Lisa had any politics she wanted to discuss with my family going forward, it was to be with my wife and I and not our children. Lisa agreed that she wouldn't do it anymore and that she didn't intend for it to go so far. Boom, problem solved, and still good neighbors.

Situation 2) My neighbor "Joe" is filling his pool. My other neighbor "Sue" had construction work done, including tearing up a concrete foundation. Joe told Sue she could fill his pool with the concrete construction debris. Unfortunately for me, hundreds of pounds of broken concrete, dirt, and stones were dumped in a lightly wooded area on my property, which borders Joe's. I have to admit that when I first saw this I was really hot. I didn't understand why someone would dump all of this crap on my property. I knocked on Joe's door and asked him about the property line and if he knew what the rocks were about (I assumed he didn't). He told me that they were meant for his pool and that he would take care of them. Months go by and the pile is still there. I don't blame Joe that much because he is older and this is heavy stuff and he probably had no clue Sue was going to have this pile dumped on my property instead of his. I tell Joe I will work on it. I've never met or even seen Sue (her property roadside is on another street, our back yards only touch at the corners and I have over an acre of land). On one of my days off, I have my three oldest boys go out with me to work on it. Then I notice rotten vegetables on and around the rocks. Now someone is tossing veggies over the fence and I'm hot again. Now I know I have to confront Sue. I have to establish that I have been wronged and that she will respect my property boundary going forward. No more rocks, veggies, or anything else comes over the fence. I spend a good chunk of time throwing concrete into a wheelbarrow and hauling it slightly uphill about 25 yards into Joe's pool. I pick up the veggies and put them in the trash.

We finally get the pile down, rake the area flat, and leave a neat stack of about 20 big pieces. I decide (at the time) Sue will get those. Three of them are 100+ lbs. each and we were tired and I wasn't about to have one of my boys get a hernia moving this stuff at this point. I send my oldest to ride his bike down the street and knock on her front door and tell her that his dad is in the back wanting to talk to her. Nobody answers. A day or so later I walk back to the area. I see her dogs out. They start barking at me through the fence. I hope this will get her attention and it does. When I see her, I call her over. I introduce myself. I ask her about the pile of concrete on my property. She explains it was for Joe's pool. I said that was fine but this was my land and not Joe's and I gave no such dumping permission. I tell her that my boys and I have already removed hundreds of pounds of rock and she will have to take care of the rest with the bucket loader or whatever it was her crew used to dump them there in the first place. I ask her about the vegetables. She openly admits to throwing them over too, with some embarrassment.

She asks if she can wait for the weekend to get the remaining pile of stones. I told her no rush, but if they are still there by the end of October, we will have to talk again. I told her I appreciated her honesty in admitting she threw the vegetables over and that she seemed to be taking my concerns seriously. I said that my main concern is not the remaining rocks, but that there be no more dumping violating my property lines in the future. I said I wanted to remain good neighbors and be friends. I said that because she was so receptive I would probably work on the rocks even more for her. The next day I have off, I go out with my oldest son and discover almost all of the remaining rocks are now gone. Sue talked to Joe, who worked on it more. My oldest and I carefully put each of the remaining 3 giant rocks into the wheelbarrow and take one trip at a time to Joe's pool. Joe was very appreciative. He gave my boys $50.00 in gift cards for pizza for all of their efforts. Joe is happy, I'm happy and Sue now understands that she must respect our property line and that while I felt wronged, I worked to resolve the issue and wanted to be a good neighbor to her, and all was forgiven. Problem solved.

I do it every fucking day for every fucking piece of annoying shit that tries to piss me off. :)

Its such a good feeling when an woman or a man just shut the fuck up and dont bother you anymore.
 
Last edited:

bigsnack

Member
It’s all in how you approach it. If you word things the right way, a confrontation can simply be a discussion. If you approach the conversation with compassion (even if the issue is the other person’s “fault”) they will almost always cave or compromise. If you don’t attack them they are far less likely to get defensive.

Good on you for approaching it head on! Lots of folks don’t realize how much mental energy and baggage a passive aggressive grudge can carry. I had to discuss my son being ostracized in our neighborhood recently, because two moms are cliquey and want to have their exclusive time together. I don’t mind that specifically, but it was getting blatant, with their kids being at our house and then suddenly bragging that they were all going out for ice cream without us. I don’t need to be included on everything, but I don’t want to feel used. It took a 10 minute conversation and now things are much better.

Hopefully your neighbor can continue to have an open mind and not judge based on your political views!
 
Last edited:

Ailynn

Faith - Hope - Love
I'm not a person who gossips, but I really need to work on trying to confront people when I've been wronged. I have a really bad life-long habit of letting others take advantage of my kindness and/or shyness. :lollipop_expressionless:
 

isual

Member
this is good, but at a job in corporate america, this isn't the way to do it because of power dynamics and other factors such as you possibly losing your job. if you do confront someone at work and you don't have that gravitas of being 'liked', they'll find other ways to let you go.

confronting only works if you have nothing to lose.
 
S

SLoWMoTIoN

Unconfirmed Member
Would not recommend doing this at the workplace if you are a man. Women take priority over you in America.
 

Jada_Li

Banned
It’s all in how you approach it. If you word things the right way, a confrontation can simply be a discussion. If you approach the conversation with compassion (even if the issue is the other person’s “fault”) they will almost always cave or compromise. If you don’t attack them they are far less likely to get defensive.

Good on you for approaching it head on! Lots of folks don’t realize how much mental energy and baggage a passive aggressive grudge can carry. I had to discuss my son being ostracized in our neighborhood recently, because two moms are cliquey and want to have their exclusive time together. I don’t mind that specifically, but it was getting blatant, with their kids being at our house and then suddenly bragging that they were all going out for ice cream without us. I don’t need to be included on everything, but I don’t want to feel used. It took a 10 minute conversation and now things are much better.

Hopefully your neighbor can continue to have an open mind and not judge based on your political views!

Devil's advocate: To put words the right way, sure...but anyone can interpret whatever they think you are saying. For example if a person tends to be the glass is half empty mentality, then even a genuine compliment can be taken as sarcasm or a form of pity. Or how you share your observations in life to encourage introspection to learn and grow to be a better person mentally and/or emotionally or simply food for thought, yet, is taken completely out of context. Everyone is different, so how a person responds will vary also regardless of the good intent behind the communication/confrontation. So just be aware and use your judgment wisely because not everyone will respond so kindly in return.
 

Ionian

Member
If someone's being an asshole call them out. What's so difficult about that?

I've been hospitalized after being bottled to the eyeball and stabbed on two separate occasions (was working as an agent for a family member that was a landlord)

I wasn't even rude to them just told them they were bothering other tenants, I laughed it off (painfully) but had to quit raiding in WoW both times.

WOTLK, those were the days.

EDIT: Did me a favour really, raiding was draining the life outta me more than the assaults.
 
Last edited:

jdforge

Banned
Did this recently. Was seeing a guy for about 3 months. He came on so strong and appeared to be perfect, heart of gold type. But changed literally overnight for no reason. (No reason he was admitting to anyway).

Instead of taking that shit - I unleashed every ounce of anger and disappointment I had at him on a video call and followed up on text with the stuff I couldn’t say. I felt so much better and still do.
 
Top Bottom