A little bit of rage...

LegacyUser

Ok, not the world's biggest problem but maybe an ongoing theme for me....?

I'm in a strange town, short term, working on a short contract. I'm a professional female in my thirties. I met my new colleagues & have just been on a nice night out with them. It was their big night out & many of them were very pissed. They are mostly lovely people. However, maybe I lingered too long in the bar, or maybe I just wanted someone to talk to as I'm staying alone in a hotel.

I chatted to many groups of new colleagues during the night, and during a lull, I went up to a girl that I had had a good rapport with. She was chatting to a guy from the company who had been friendly to me early in the night. I didn't butt in rudely, but I did join their company for about thirty seconds. Then he jumped off his bar stool and PHYSICALLY PUSHED ME - not even pushed but put an arm around me and FORCED me towards another male/female combo who were obviously deep in office flirtation, insisting I should 'meet these great people'. They were drunk and into each other. I was shocked that I'd just been PHYSICALLY REMOVED WITH FORCE. The sober bar woman caught my eye and I knew she understood the situation the same way I did - I'd just been SHOVED away, like I was nothing. I left, smiling through embarrassment.

The guy who did it - I thought he was ok early in the night. But he is an ill dressed pot bellied nerd with no chin & feck all personality.

I can't believe that I was MANHANDLED by this guy (who I had very politely chatted to earlier) and that no-one in the (very drunk) group stepped in on my side, apart from the bar girl who couldn't do or say anything anyway. He used ALL HIS STRENGTH to push me towards the other couple. I obviously didn't resist as I hadn't seen it coming & I just smiled & pretended to laugh. I'm 5'3, not tiny & I like to think I have presence but I am a very slim build so its easy enough to push me anywhere IF you catch me off guard - as he did.

I am kicking myself for not giving him a smart comment, or a well placed and discrete elbow in the ribs, both of which I am well capable of giving. Or actually I should have just stopped him & said 'why don't you push a man around instead?' or maybe I should have spun away and said 'what are you doing?' or 'U TOUCHED ME!!!' Though of course I couldn't because these people are my future wage packet & I like most of them & would enjoy their friendship.

When I was younger, I was bullied a alot, and when I became an adult I was an angry and quite vicious young wan. So angry and vicious that I scratched up cars, blackmailed someone badly, spiked people.... did not do good stuff... but only to people who were vicious too. Though I know how wrong it was and have spent time fixing some wrong things since.

Now that I'm in my 30s I conduct myself really well, treat everyone (even chinless accountants like him) with respect and people have called me a 'real lady' because of it. I feel very lucky that I have escaped my past, look pretty good, conduct myself well & have some very good friends of my own and I am well loved by a nice man (who has a chin & a stomach of steel! Not that that matters actually but you know where I'm coming from...)

Now the chinless accountant made all the rage and the pain come back. I know this is a trivial problem compared to some of whats on here...

But this is not the only incident like this... nowadays I only feel rage maybe once a year... but I'm full of fantasies of how to mess with this 'man' who I hardly even know - but who dismissed me enough to physically humiliate me in front of a bunch of strangers who I am trying to do business & make friends with.

So please, either help me find ways to make me make life difficult for this stranger who's name, address & email I know, or help me see my rage for it is (what is it?) and move on.

The reality is that I feel like I am no-one because nobody really cared enough to notice or stand up for me and I didn't stand up for myself either & I am angry with myself for staying out so late with people I don't know.

Revenge? Somehow? Or therapy?

Ickle Magoo

I think you need to get a bit of perspective...the guy was drunk, chatting up the girl and you wandered in and he wanted rid of you asap so he could get back to trying to get his leg over. If you had turned around and smacked him or started screaming at him, you'd now be known as the psycho of the workplace so I think you did exactly the right thing.

You didn't know these people, you weren't friends with these people - as much as it would have been lovely for someone to leap to your defence and jump in as knight in shining armour, in the real world that doesn't really happen - especially from people who have no affinity or loyalty to us. Drunk people don't really notice what goes on around them, especially if they are in the midst of a drunken fumble. C'est la vie.

Move on, stop with the weirdo psycho threats about his address and e-mail, cop on, you'll end up the laughing stock if not with a police record if you start down that road. So, the guy is a moron, you now know that. Plenty of them in the world. You need to learn to deal with them, especially in the professional arena. Steer clear and stop taking all the pent up aggression, frustration and powerlessness you felt being bullied growing up and projecting it onto this one incident on a drunken night out.

Best of luck

tenchi-fan

It sounds like he thought he was getting somewhere with the girl and you butted in, so he pushed you towards another couple.

He shouldn't have shoved you. Why don't you mention it to him in private when both of you are sober some time?

It was very disrespectful but I doubt he pushed you with all his strength. Don't even consider revenge - what could you possible do? Look immature by calling him a chinless accountant in front of his co-workers? Or key his car? There really is nothing you can do that won't bring you down to his level.

santana75

This situation is like an ice-berg, theres a lot more going on below the surface. The problem is: Abusive behaviour conducted behind a veil of humour. Theres actually a name for it, Covert aggressive. Its the name given to people who are too cowardly to take a swing at you out in the open but will do it covertly, usually masking their attacks behind humour. Its like if you got a new haircut and one of the other ladies in the office said something like, "look at the state of you with that dodgy haircut!!" And then that was quickly followed by, "Sure Im only joking with you, can you not take a joke!" Thats somebody being nasty but whos too cowardly to be upfront and openly nasty, so she'll hide her attack behind humour. The problem with this type of behaviour is that it can be tricky to deal with. On one hand you dont want to be walked all over and made a fool of, but on the other hand you dont want ot be seen as humourless, a stick in the mud, a killjoy, or whatever. And therein lies the problem, its natural enough to want others to like us so sometimes we can let things slide for fear of being disliked or percieved negatively. And I think thats what happened here OP. Dont be too hard on yourself though, because like I said its a trcky one to deal with. Especially if youre caught off guard like you were. You just could not expect something like that to happen. So I think the first thing you need to do is to cut yourself some slack.

Next thing you need to do is to learn how to deal with covert aggressives(and theres a lot of them around). And to do that you'll need to resist the urge to make people like you. You have to not care what anybody thinks about the way you react when somebody steps over the line with you. Taking the example of what happened the other night in the bar, when that guy pushed you out of the way what you couldve done was instantly drop any pretence of humour, get serious and call him on his behaviour. Make a scene and demand an apology. You cant introvert, when you do you lose any chance of sorting a covert aggresive out. Of course hindsight is a great thing and its easy to say you shouldve done this or that after the fact. Whats important is that you learn and come up with ways to combat this behaviour in the future. Trust me, you'll get another chance to deal with covert aggresive behaviour, like I said, theres a lot of them about.
Theres plenty of ways of dealing with this kind of behaviour and it'd take too long for me to go into all of them. The best thing you can do is to read this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nasty-People-Jay-Carter/dp/0071410228/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270904804&sr=1-1

Its only about 100 pages long but this is definitely a case of qaulity not quantity.

Please dont go off on some half cocked revenge mission on this guy. You wont feel better, you'll feel worse. If he tries to mess with you again use what jay carter says in this book to sort him out there and then.

The important thing to remember is: DONT INTROVERT. It'll take practice but you'll get there, just dont take crap from anybody no matter how much they protest they were joking. The difference between gentle, good natured ripping and abusive, covert attacks is the way you feel. Trust your feelings, if somebody makes a comment at you and claims to be only joking but yet you feel bad, then youre being attacked and respond accordingly. Learn, thats all you can do and try to do yourself justice next time. So go easy and dont beat up on yourself.

Im not religious but I read a quote taken form the bible and I think its spot on in its description of life, the way people can be and how you should conduct yourself accordingly

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves

Which translated means, be a nice, decent person but keep your wits about you because not everybody is as nice and decent as you.

PK2008

To be honest OP, I think you handled it with alot of class. The guy is obviously an a55, and doesnt deserve any more of you energy thinking about.

I know you would like to get your own back but that would just be letting him drag you down to his level.

OP you are blowing this WAY out of proportion. Yes, his actions were rude. Lots of people are rude. Getting angry is normal, fantasising about messing with his life is not. From reading your post, it seems like you have completely projected your own issues onto this man. Look at it from his perspective. He's chatting up a girl he likes and the new person butts into the conversation. He most likely has nothing against you, but didn't really want to be c*ckblocked, so in his drunken state thought 'better get rid of her'. Why did nobody stand up for you? Because this type of thing happens ALL THE TIME. It's not like he tried to rape you, for crying out loud. He pushed you towards some other people, hoping you'd start a conversation with them instead.

I'm glad you realise your actions in the past were vicious - I mean, spiking people? Whatever the person did to you, that's inexcusable. People treating you badly does not give you the right to commit crimes against them. You said they were vicious, but your actions sounded just as bad, or worse. You sound like someone who goes around with a chip on their shoulder, seeing things that aren't there and imagining all kinds of slights that may not have even happened. It's really not healthy at all. If you think someone has been rude to them, turn around and say it to their face, or let it go. Simmering with rage about a drunken incident isn't going to help anything.

Revenge or therapy? I would definitely recommend therapy.

LegacyUser

Hi everyone,

I'm the OP, thanks for the thoughtful replies.

I posted that last night while still under the influence & I have been cringing all day about that post, and about getting so worked up, and about stupid revenge fantasies. I did have the odd psycho incident as a young one but a lot of that was surrounding myself with the wrong people and getting involved in the stuff that came with them. I have taken responsibility for my own part in it however and dealt with it a long, long time ago.

I'm still a bit weirded out by being treated like that, probably because, although yes, it wasn't rape or anything like that, it was just unexpected and very physical. I'm not used to someone I don't even know grabbing me like that and nearly lifting me off my feet as he marched me across the bar to shove me in some people's faces. Also not big on either rejection or public humiliation. I still think there is something wrong about this guy but with sobriety I can see that his behaviour is not my problem. I've been around a lot, I haven't lived a sheltered life, and I do think my judgement about him is correct, even when sober. But maybe he's just someone who is very, very self-orientated or maybe he doesn't understand how to act, or maybe he is a closet sociopath. Not my problem!
Though I'm going back to up Dublin on Monday morning to work with them so I'll see a lot more of this guy. But I'll just act like nothing happened of course & thats the end of it. I will obviously be a bit wary of this character, and maybe if I did know him better it should be mentioned privately and soberly but if he's as bad as I think he is, there's no point, as he is not my problem and he won't catch me off guard again (though I still won't ever cause a real scene). And if he isn't as bad as I think he is then its over anyway.

I do wish I'd called him on it - in a calm way, I was just too shocked. But I didn't do anything wrong at all last night, except revenge fantasies.

So thats the end of the matter. I suppose it was just shock last night. I don't generally have assertiveness issues these days, though I suppose going into such a rage dates back to childhood. Or maybe it was drunkenness. I'm usually a very mellow drunk but there must be something beneath the surface to let something get to me like that. Its something I obviously have to watch. Its obvious that people only have revenge fantasies if they feel powerless in real life, and obviously as I'm ok again today, that must mean that drink weakens me. Also drove back home this morning and spent a lovely day with my own friends so I feel stronger - and really stupid for the revenge fantasies!

Thanks for the great quote Santana 75. I'll try to remember it.

So thanks for taking the time to post. No need for more posts, I'd rather this thread just dies away so I can forget the whole thing - both him & my own reactions! But thanks.

Your sincerely,

Chilled out xx

profitius

I've something to share. If you spend time with lots of drunk people don't expect normal behaviour.

Maybe the guy had good intentions either way if you don't like that sort of behaviour do what I do and avoid drunks.