One of the things I’ve noticed since being more confrontational and standing up for myself is that a lot of people have no idea how to deal with conflict resolution. By this I mean, when someone confronts you with an issue that requires a change in behaviour (I.e. they tell you that something you’ve done has bothered/upset them) a lot of people immediately get defensive and find something to throw back in the other persons face.
For example, I recently asked one of my housemates to not use her hairdryer at 1am as it’s loud and I can’t sleep when she does that - a fair request and one that didn’t need to become an argument. It did, however. Said housemate immediately started saying “well I don’t complain when you do this”. To this I replied, “I apologise, I didn’t realise I was doing that and I’ll try not to do it in future” and that conflict was resolved. The initial one was not however as my initial issue wasn’t addressed in any way. This undoubtably caused an argument that just had to fizzle out.
The problem is that this housemate was too proud to acknowledge that she’d done something wrong/impolite, which is the first step in resolving a conflict. The steps that follow are dependent on that first one, as you can’t apologise for something you haven’t accepted that you’ve done nor can you promise not to do it again if you haven’t accepted that you shouldn’t have done it in the first place.
The other issue with the style of arguing where you just throw your own issues back at someone to deflect from theirs is that it makes your own issues seem trivial/spiteful- especially if you never bring them up otherwise. For example, in that same earlier argument after I made the promise to not repeat my behaviour, my housemate replied, “whatever, I really don’t care” which complicates things further as you either care enough to bring it up and therefore want the offending behaviour changed, or you don’t care enough for you to want it to change and therefore shouldn’t bring it up. As a result, I no longer know whether an issue that my housemate brings to me is a genuine issue she wants fixing or if she’s just being spiteful as they often come following an issue I’ve brought to her. It is very much a case of boy who cried wolf.
In short, when someone tries to confront you about your behaviour/something you’ve done, it’s relatively easy to resolve it without argument, particularly if it’s something minor, if you listen to them and are prepared to accept that you have done something wrong
