The only thing an asshole cannot do is de-center themselves.
Everyone has asshole moments where they feel like they are or should be the center of the universe (and often not in a good way; “Why me?!?” is often an asshole question). Also, there are areas where you should center yourself, such as managing or valuing yourself, your close relationships, and your resources. Being a doormat people pleaser isn’t actually a virtue. Centering yourself in your own life story is healthy. Someone is the protagonist of your story, and it should be you.
But real assholes never stop centering themselves.
Even when they’re ignored, overlooked, unpromoted, unappreciated, belittled, insulted, and treated with contempt.
They’re the hero of the story, and if they can’t play the hero, they’ll play the villain.
Sidekick? Nah.
Victim? Only until the supply of ego-centering attention runs out.
I call the way assholes constantly center themselves “but me” response.
And it comes out in force after you set boundaries:
“I know you set boundaries, I respect your boundaries, but they don’t apply to me.”
“I know there are rules in place, but I can always find away around em. Besides, I have the common sense to know when to break the rules and when not to.”
“I know I should wait like everyone else, but can’t you just do me one little favor?”
Some assholes will scream or lash out at you. Some will try to ooze past your boundaries, getting past them on technicalities and expecting you to respect their ingenuity. And some people will wheedle and flatter and brown-nose you.
But mostly they will try to undermine you.
It’s not that they hate rules: it’s that they hate the rules being applied to them.
“But me,” they say.
And as soon as you set a boundary on your own actions (and remember, controlling your own behavior is the heart of a good boundary), they will challenge it.
They don’t like you having effective rules for yourself.
Because it means you don’t see them as the hero or villain of your story.
If they can’t control or influence your behavior the way they’re used to, even if that sense of control was always an illusion, it means that you see them as less important than you see yourself.
“But I was just trying to help.”
“But I was just being honest.”
“But don’t you love me?”
The one thing an asshole can’t do is decenter themselves.
An asshole will take “It’s not about you” and “I need to decide for myself” as personal attacks. Every single fucking time.
Setting good boundaries on your own behavior will tell you a lot about other people.
A person who is struggling and does asshole shit occasionally from stress, bad habits, or ignorance will respond to a good (that is, self-directed) boundary by decentering themselves. They might try a time or two to push the boundary–especially if they haven’t learned how to set boundaries for themselves–but they’ll back down.
An asshole will double down and try to force you to center them.
They may use any number of tactics, from violence and murder (no shit, ask around at a homicide department or a domestic violence shelter about what assholes will do to prop up their egos) to flattery and fake apologies.
These tactics all have one thing in common: they keep the asshole at the center of the story. This is key.
Normal people want less drama; assholes need to prove that they’re the center of the story.
Here’s my advice:
- Expect pushback when you set boundaries or otherwise take action toward centering yourself as the protagonist of your own story.
- You will know that what is happening is pushback if the problem could be solved by the other person keeping their mouth shut.
- Expect pushback to have “consequences,” that is, the person doing the pushing back to hold the relationship hostage if you don’t do what they want.
- Pushback won’t always come from its true source. Assholes use other people to do their boring and unpleasant dirty work all the time.
- The people being used may not even know it; all they know is they feel uncomfortable around certain types of behavior that might “stir up trouble,” that is, irritate an asshole into direct action.
If you haven’t set good boundaries on your own behavior, then it’s hard to notice when someone else is manipulating you.
Lots of things are hard to notice when they’re right in front of your face and you never really established that you’re not going to tolerate them. For most people, most of the time, it’s easy to tune out minor discomforts and just run on autopilot.
I have yet to meet someone, asshole or not, who is fully aware of the implications of what everyone around them is doing, constantly and consistently, or our affect on others. With over eight billion people in the world, it’s not possible. We don’t have the resources.
We tune that shit out, most of the time.
And because we’re so good at tuning shit out, we tune out even more shit than we should.
And that brings us to the next point: microavoidance, or what I personally call “swerve.” But I’ll write about that later.
…
Last month was a shitshow.
I set boundaries with several different people with whom I have close relationships; they all pushed back. One of them took the boundary particularly badly, doubled down, and got unfriended. Then they continued doubling down. I’m trying to ignore it, but if it continues I’ll have to cut them out of my life even further. All three instances were fucking exhausting. A couple of minor pushbacks from other people have happened this month already.
The situation feels like when I first started resisting people’s control online, in 2016 around the general US elections. Back then, I started figuring out how much I was getting harassed online by tracking how long it took before someone tried to manipulate me into changing my opinion, or who tried to shame or harass me to devalue me in other people’s eyes, daily.
Before I started blocking people and/or leaving the friendship circles I was in, it was rarely after 8 a.m.
My friends were so insecure about what they believed in and how they related to people who weren’t straight white men, that they couldn’t stop themselves from insulting, harassing, and manipulating me.
Let’s not even start talking about the insecurities of acquaintances and strangers.
At any rate, I am happier, safer, more resilient, more productive, and more effective now. (I hope I’m also a better friend, too. But that’s not for me to decide.)
I am hoping that preserving my boundaries will mean something good for my peace of mind in the long run. But right now it’s hard to see the benefit for the costs.
I’m pretty sure that’s a POSIWID of pushback, by the way: to make you choose your battles when someone else can’t respect a fucking line.
…
You can find the Asshole Mitigation Plan series outline here.
