Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Passive Agressive

I used to live with a roommate, who was a very sweet girl, but was also much more outwardly religious than the rest of us. Which, for an apartment of girls at BYU was impressive.  Well, one thing she would so is print out various inspirational quotes from scriptures, religious talks, whatever. And then post them all over the common area of the apartment. It was kind of awkward to feel like the very walls of the apartment were constantly lecturing us. Plus, it made us seem kind of crazy and zealoty to casual guests. Which, again, at BYU is quite the feat.

So we decided to solve the problem like college girls solve most roommate disputes, passive aggressively. We all went around, took them down and placed them in a neat pile on her desk.

They didn't reappear, she didn't say anything, so I just assumed that the message was received, without any of that pesky talking stuff. Until she mentioned to a visiting friend, with most of the apartment present, how sad she was that someone would just take all of her nice quotes down without even talking to her. Why oh why did they feel the need to be so cruel and passive aggressive?

At the time I felt horribly guilty about my passive aggressive behavior. Until I realized that she had passive-aggressively complained about our passive aggressive behavior.

12 comments:

  1. hahaha passive aggressiveness is awesome.

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  2. Yeah... I remember that... but I had no idea that she took a stab back at us!! That makes it even more hilarious. Relief Society is for church, not the front room.

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  3. I have passive aggressive tendencies. My apartment's power bill is ridiculous this month, and I want to deal with it by leaving information about energy conservation on the kitchen table.

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  4. Behavior worthy of http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com

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  5. Ha! I wonder if she will end up reading this and feel that this was a passive aggressive comment on her passive aggressive response.

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  6. HAHAHA. I'm pretty impressed by BOTH displays of passive aggression ... which is also quite a feat considering I too have had female roommates. ;)

    I assume you've seen this? If not, some are so funny:

    http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/

    (But some are just plain aggressive.)

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  7. Oh, someone already commented! Nm.

    But, a way to one-up your former roommate: submit this story to that site, then mention casually you thought she'd *like* the site so she'll see it.

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  8. I'm a huge fan of passive aggression. Anyone can do regular aggression, but it takes talent to be truly, wonderfully, passive-aggressive!

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  9. Hahah I love it. I had a roommate like that and I was so passive aggressive in college..and slightly aggressive because I moved out!

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  10. My last boss was super passive-aggressive and we all hated it. When she was retiring, one of our coworkers applied to be her replacement. She had to go to Human Resource classes on proper managerial techniques. She told me that basically, all the classes taught you was that it's better to be passive aggressive because it doesn't get you sued. So, maybe my first boss wasn't such a horrible manager after all - she was following "the rules."

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  11. Oh wow. I just had a flash back to every single apartment I lived in at BYU. Not pretty.

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  12. I love all the passive aggressive behavior...kinda made me laugh.

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