Comment by sokka_h2otribe
15 days ago
I admit you encouraged me to think a little more about how the person (like myself, in many ways), might feel to be called abrasive, difficult, or any other negative thing.
It makes me want to reframe this a little with your statement 'understand the person and adapt accordingly.' As someone who has learned their social skills later, I think it's usually more of a responsibility of the abrasive person to adapt their communication style and know when it is best used.
Specifically, I think abrasive and direct works great in high trust environments. It has served me well as well. It does sometimes relate to autism for me, ymmv.
Anyway the reason why it doesn't work outside of high trust environments is that people have feelings, and their feelings matter. Ultimately you do have a responsibility to try and be considerate. So like, for me I try to separate the high trust and low trust environments in my life, and keep the part of me that's direct and abrasive (often among peers in technical context) less vocal in the low trust environment.
When I intentionally want to push back in a low trust environment, I try to check in more with the person, look to where they seem uncomfortable, and double check I understand what their insecurities might be in a certain context as that often increases defensiveness.
Sometimes in low trust environments I might not notice, or I might identify it as low trust and just not care. In those contexts yeah I'll be the disgruntled aspie ;) but in other contexts I want to connect to people and really think through the impact of my words not the righteousness.
I tend to look at it more from the perspective of what I can control. I can’t control how others communicate. What I can control is how I communicate and how respond to others. My response requires me to seek to understand the other person and then use that to guide my actions.
You’re right that direct and/or abrasive communication is better received in high trust relationships or environments. So the goal should always be to try and take steps to cultivate that.
In my experience, some people are legitimate assholes. but many are simply misunderstood and what I’ve learned throughout my life is that you’ll learn a lot and gain a lot simply by looking past your initial emotional response and approach things with an open mind.