So...

[lithera]

As I have been doing a lot of thinking on the subject recently, I will ask all of you.

What do you do when someoen around you hurts you unintentionally or unknowingly? How do you react when someone brings it to you that you have done that to them?

Comments

[pamc.livejournal.com]

What do you do when someoen around you hurts you unintentionally or unknowingly?

Tell them that I know they didn't intend to hurt me but that they did hurt me and how.

How do you react when someone brings it to you that you have done that to them?

Apologize, find out what specifically I did wrong and work out away to avoid repeating the situation.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Those both do seem to go the right way about it. I just never seem to get that to work out correctly in the past. People get angry and thigns seem to get worse. *ponders*

[pamc.livejournal.com]

Get angry at what? At what point in the process do they get angry?

Re:

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Generally with the confrontation part of it. It's always touchy there. No matter how nicely or non-confrontationally you say, "You hurt me, I want to work on it so it doesn't happen again." it is still bound to make some people react strongly. At least I have found this to be true in past situations, thus making me hesitant when looking towards the future.

[pamc.livejournal.com]

Agreed. There are very few people who know how to handle situations like that. I'm usually better at being confronted than confronting.

[gehn.livejournal.com]

There's a big difference between "What DO i do" and "What SHOULD I do"...

If someone unintentionally hurts me, I take the next opportunity to crawl off somewhere and be sad and hurt for a while, but not want to make conflict, so I end up just taking it and moving on.

What I would think someone SHOULD do is to approach said person and let them know that, while you're not attacking them, and you know they didn't mean to, they might have stepped on your toes a bit. Honesty and communication are important in any relationship that matters, be it friends, SOs, whatever.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I've done the first myself. In fact, for a long time that was the only way I dealt with something like this, getting really quiet and hiding.

[gehn.livejournal.com]

My roomates, w0lf and deqlan, who are two very close friends of mine, are currently helping me deal with something along the same lines.. not fighting my battles for me, so to speak, but helping me approach the solution with the person.

It makes it a LOT more manageable..

Re:

[lithera.livejournal.com]

*nods* That always helps. That might be something I could look into. I can see where it might have worked in the past. It seems dependant on the situation.

[fireballof3.livejournal.com]

*raises hand*

Talk to me about it in great detail, and bounce the entire situation off of me.

After that, the solution will be self evident!

;-)

Re:

[lithera.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I'll see. Right now, I'm just kind of watching somethings. If it gets to the point where I need a specific way to deal with something, I'll let you know.

Re:

[fireballof3.livejournal.com]

Fair nuff.

Just let me know if you need to bounce it offa me.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Of course. Of course.

*hugs*

[princessgeek.livejournal.com]

When I am hurt unintentionally or intentionally for that matter, I would like to say I try to bring it up.

But, usually they get defensive. Accuse me of overreacting, being unreasonable. And then I feel guilty for bringing it up. So I would say about 75% of the time, I swallow my hurt and it goes away eventually. Bringing it up just upsets one more person.

[gamethyme.livejournal.com]

If I know it was unintentional, I'll bottle it away and try never to mention it. Mind you, if I ever lose my temper at them, they'll hear about it -- and I'll regret mentioning it, later.

If I am the transgressor, and I find out about it, I'll apologize. A lot. Over and over and over until the person wants to kill me. And I'll cringe. I'm pretty good at cringing.

[rfjason.livejournal.com]

The same I do when someone steps on my toes: I go "oww! You shot me you a-hole!" And then they apologize, or I beat them.

[seanb.livejournal.com]

When somebody hurts me unintentionally, I sometimes bring it to their attention. Quite often, I consciously forgive, although I am ashamed to admit that often this affects my feelings for that person, feelings that bleed over into other things. Usually, I try to base my judgements more on intentions than consequences.

I try to be objective about evauluating complaints that are brought to me. In the initial conversation, I seem to take their critique at face value. Then I spend the next few days in spiraling overanalysis, looking at the validity of their complaint and trying to ferret out the root cause of my behavior that they are complaining about. Last time I did this, this process itself caused problems, because the other person took my analysis as "focusing on the negative parts of (that person) and our friendship".

At least, that's how I behave when I'm at my best. There have been times when somebody came to me to talk about my hurtful behavior, and I took it as a personal attack (either because of their communication style or my mood at the time). There is one person in particular that this happened with several times last year, but I don't think it has happened with anybody else.