Difficult people love to cause problems for people who are just minding their own business. However, you can avoid getting caught up in these games by identifying what’s going on before they realize you’re on to them.
Whether or not you choose to engage after is up to you. A lot of people glorify the idea of going toe-to-toe with a difficult person to put them in their place, but you have to keep in mind that difficult people often have a lot more experience than you. This is what they do, day in, day out.
It’s a far better idea to understand their tactics so you can avoid getting pulled in altogether. As such, keep your eye out for baits like these.
1. Accusations that demand a defense.
“You don’t actually care about me!” “You’re always so selfish!”
It’s not a question or a thoughtful comment. It’s just an emotional grenade meant to prod you, make you angry or defensive, and get you to dance to their tune.
They’re attempting to establish some form of chaos or control in the conversation for whatever ends they have.
It might be to get you to do something you don’t want to do, or simply because they’re a vampire. Not a literal vampire, mind you, but an energy vampire, someone who thrives on high emotions and arguing.
You may feel compelled to defend yourself – but don’t. The most effective way to defuse this kind of behavior is just to shrug it off.
2. The reversal of victim and aggressor.
They did something wrong, you bring it up, but now you find you are defending yourself over something not quite related.
A classic example of this is going through your partner’s phone and finding out they are having an affair.
Ok, in an ideal world, you wouldn’t do that, but the fact that you went through their phone is pretty much irrelevant in the face of the much greater betrayal of having an affair.
Of course, the person who is having the affair doesn’t want you to focus on that. Instead, they want you to focus on how you’re a bad person for violating their trust and privacy.
In the moment, it’s incredibly frustrating. After? It’s kind of ridiculous. Going through someone’s phone because they have given you valid reasons not to trust them is so inconsequential compared to the lies and manipulation required to maintain an affair.
3. The shield of “I was just joking.”
“I was just joking” has been the shield for a lot of terrible behavior. The difficult person will say something questionable, testing the waters to see if they are in friendly company, then get defensive when you’re offended.
“I was just kidding! It was just a joke! Why do you gotta get so worked up over it?”
But yet you’re pretty sure it wasn’t actually a joke, and they were just being a jerk.
Listen to that intuition. If you’d like to have a little extra fun with it, ask them to explain the joke. Most of the time they will waffle on as they realize they can’t defend the garbage thing they said.
4. Personal attacks.
There’s an old saying that you know that you’ve won a debate when the other person starts insulting you. That’s because when they can’t attack your argument, then they attack you as a person.
At that point, I just smile at the person and let them throw their temper-tantrum. It’s like watching a toddler scream themselves into exhaustion.
After the personal attacks start, all you really have to do is sit back and wait for them to tire themselves out.
They’ll run out of steam soon enough. If they had anything of substance, they would be attacking you that way.
5. The insult disguised as innocent observation.
“Oh, you’re going to wear that?” “Wow, you didn’t think that through at all.”
Passive-aggressive comments like this are a common tool of difficult people because many of them don’t want to face responsibility for their negative thoughts.
Instead, they mask it behind turns of phrase and asking “innocent” questions meant to poke holes in your confidence or jab at you as a person.
It’s just another form of bait that can usually be ignored.
When someone criticizes you, the first thing you want to consider is whether or not that person is worth listening to.
What you’ll find is that many difficult people don’t have their own lives together. As such, their “observation” means little because it simply comes from a mean-spirited place.
6. The loaded question.
A good sign of this type of bait is all-or-nothing language, like “Why do you always do that?” or “Why are you always so angry?”
No one always does anything.
Sometimes people do things, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they do things more often than others, sure.
But always? Always is rare, and when it’s used, it’s usually used in some combative or minimizing way.
In many cases, a statement like that is meant to evoke an angry response; that way they can paint themselves as the victim.
If they can make you angry by saying it, they can then backpedal and say, “Woah, woah, woah! See what I mean? Relax!”
And now you may feel or be perceived as though you’re the bad guy when they were purposefully egging you on.
7. The guilt trip.
Manipulative people love a good old guilt trip. It’s simple, it’s timeless, it’s classic.
“Well, I guess you don’t really like me.” “If you cared about me you’d…”
It’s just an unimaginative form of manipulation where that person is trying to use your good feelings toward them against you.
It’s a pretty garbage behavior meant to coerce and manipulate you into doing something you don’t want to do.
I find there to be two ways to go about this. I usually just ignore them and do what I was going to do anyway, as I was going to do it.
I reason that if they can’t be forthright and act reasonably toward me, there’s no real reason for me to worry about them.
The other option is to lean into it and confirm everything they say. By doing that, they figure out that guilt-tripping doesn’t work. Use that one sparingly, though.
8. Comparing you to other people.
“My ex didn’t care that I…” “Other people seem to do just fine.”
You’re not other people.
What they’re doing is trying to pressure you into acting the way that they want you to act, rather than accepting you for who you are.
What I’ve found in life is that a lot of people really only care about you so long as you’re easy and useful to them. When you stop being useful, they stop being so understanding.
The way to handle that really depends on the situation. I will typically use a simple, “Well, I’m not X. If you want it done their way, ask them.”
Or, if in a relationship situation, a simple reminder that they aren’t in a relationship with that person anymore can be worthwhile.
Final thoughts…
Difficult people can be quite manipulative, sometimes not even realizing what they’re doing. But they’re pretty easy to spot once you can identify what kind of tools and tactics they use.
What you do with that information is entirely up to you.
Most importantly, maintain your composure, which defuses their attempts to control other people’s perception of you.
If you get angry, they can claim to be the victim. But if you stay calm and collected, they look like the bad actor they are, instead.
