Dealing With These Ignorant Situations

[OhHiMark]

I think I know the answer but wanted some opinions of two example of ignorant people. The pattern in both examples is "this person has made me feel and look stupid, I now have to rebuttal them in order to regain some respect" Ego at play.

1. I'm on a coach, it's early in the morning 5am and I get talking to the girl next to me, I'm aware it's early so we keep our voices down but the passive aggressive guy in front lowers his chair on my legs as a way of showing his disapproval of our talking, I ask him kindly re-adjust the chair and his response is "you need to stop jabbering" this immediately made me see red and I told him to move somewhere else. Rest of the trip he was huffing and puffing and acting like a child. What do you do in this situation? 

2. I was doing 'extra' work on a movie and the extras were allowed access to the actors food tent, one of the extras approached the coffee van but the coffee lady completely ignored the extra's request for a drink. This is a long standing prejudice against extras, they get treated like crap and even though they were allowed access to the van, they were made to feel like scum. So how do you deal with this? Accept it for what it is and walk away with no drink or ask why she's acting this way?

Both examples tell me the ego is being hurt real bad and wants to do something to numb the pain so it fights back.

Should I have stopped talking on the coach? Does it show a weak character to 'give in'? Does it weaken my ego in a bad way?

 

Thanks guys

Edited September 10, 2017 by OhHiMark

[Truth]

In your case the best thing you could have done was smiled and said my bad or something along those lines. But since this would  (in this case) make you feel weak or think "I can't give him what he wants! Fuck that! He's ignorant!" You actually made the situation worse.

 

If you want to fix this issue, humble yourself. Give them what they want, give them the respect etc. Watch how much you resist doing this. A strong or tough ego can easily turn into arrogance without awareness. Weakening your ego in this case would actually be the absolute best thing for you. Allow yourself to feel weak, vulnerable, because in the end you’re just protecting yourself, Which is fine, but ask yourself, am I really protecting myself? Or am I protecting the idea of myself? In this case you're just protecting the idea. Unless of course he threatened you with a knife or something.

 

[Damir Elezi]

I can only agree to what@Truth  said. How I deal with it is responding in a funny, light hearted way (not sarcasm) for example you could have whispered to the girl extremely quietly "You heard him, you're too loud! Be quiet!" in a funny manner. Picking on both of them a little bit. I like to treat social interactions as games where the only goal is to get some fun out of it for all people involved. If You treat it like that, You won't get agitated and the only person who suffers is the one who gets mad (the guy telling You to shut up)

[Truth]

 

47 minutes ago, Mad Max said:

• "I don't need to do shit, you fat fuck. Back the fuck off, or I'm gonna break your arms and shove them up your fat, fucking ass". That sounds about right. Be ready for physical confrontation, too.
• Don't walk away. Don't ask why she's acting this way. Get her attention instead. Raise your voice. Snap your fingers at her. Make a scene. "Hey, bitch. Where's my fucking coffee?". Some knights in shining armor will probably flood the place right after. That's okay. Stand your ground. Be ready to get ejected from the set, too. At least you stood up for yourself, and didn't lose your balls.

@Mad Max Typical chimp behavior right here. 

Someone with low self-esteem might need to use this mentality, but really it's just the opposite of what we said. the only difference is the extremes and where someone sits on this spectrum of Low self-esteem ego's and high self-esteem ego's. The real issue is not seeing the ego game being played here. the True issue is the ego itself if you really want to start solving problems masterfully. 

[Truth]

@Mad MaxYou don't understand what I mean by ego. There needs to be a distinction made between identity and "identity", the ego and the "ego", the true self and the false self, illusion and truth. I'm not trying to shit on your parade or say your wrong. I just don't want you to miss my point. 

Edited September 10, 2017 by Truth

[zenjen]

@Mad Max the ego is useful for the evolutionary purpose of survival, but the situations @OhHiMark describes are no where near "life or death" significance.

 

I think this article explains my own thoughts on defensiveness well:

https://www.circleofa.org/library/articles/in-my-defenselessness-my-safety-liesletting-go-of-our-defenses-against-our-brothers/ 

[Truth]

@Mad Max not saying your right either. If he takes your advice at face value it's just gonna turn into polar opposing insecurity compensation, and into a new dogma, then he'll have an even deeper issue to deal with. 

Edited September 10, 2017 by Truth

[OhHiMark]

Thank you guys, brilliant posts as usual and a nice mixture of approaches. I personally feel being 'direct' would go against me due to not being in full control (blood boiling, defensive, not processing what's coming out).

I like the angle of taking their comments, smiling and letting it be, embracing the resistance and growing from it. Of course I wouldn't stop talking and the person would carry on insisting I stop. But as long as I'm in control of what I'm saying then job done.

When I got off the coach he made another comment about talking too much, of course I bit. But this was a perfect time to smile and get off seeing as I didn't need to see him again.