The surprising pitfalls of being more assertive

A couple of years ago I decided I wanted to try to become more assertive, mainly in my interactions with service providers such as phone companies, garages and landlords. I felt like I was getting fobbed off a lot and accepting poor service. It was a very interesting goal to have, with surprising results. This post focuses on the surprising pitfalls:

Becoming too fussy

If you get into a mindset where you want to never be taken advantage of or get a bad deal, you might end up spending hours and hours a week complaining about products and services and trying to get the result you feel you deserve. Ultimately, you do have to let some things go unless you enjoy being involved in consumer complaints. I am contemplating developing some sort of system for this, such as a minimum price limit for complaints, or taking up every other issue I encounter (is it me or are goods and services getting shoddier overall?).

There’s also a risk of expecting too much from people. Everyone makes mistakes and the self-employed in particular are often under a lot of pressure due to the stresses of managing a business and the low and irregular pay often involved.

It’s difficult to predict people’s reactions, which may be negative

For some reason, I thought that if I was assertive in a ‘good’ way (relatively polite and direct), people would be ok with it. The fact is, you can’t totally predict people’s reactions and it’s also difficult to completely avoid sounding pompous/self-righteous/insulting when being assertive, so sometimes people will be rude to you, or they might be scared by conflict and back right away, even blocking you maybe. Alternatively, it may simply be ignored unless you employ further tactics and means. People are naturally quite defensive for the most part and even employing textbook tactics such as using ‘I’ not ‘you’ statements and including a compliment may still lead to some negativity towards you, some ‘fighting back’ – or flight.

I realised that although I’d become comfortable with debate and minor conflicts in friendships, not all my friends had. I even lost a friend through this, who decided to block me after I disagreed with him on an issue. As it was over Whatsapp I didn’t realise he was getting seriously upset by the conversation that I just saw as a quite trivial difference in views.

Most people are not comfortable with disagreements, in my experience, and it can be difficult to gauge how comfortable someone is. That said, some couples and family members are VERY comfortable with disagreements, as my neighbours demonstrate! It’s probably easier to gauge when you are face to face, and maybe even necessary to ask how someone feels about having debates or disagreements, if it’s a friend or partner. I once almost broke up with a partner because we’d been sniping at each other a lot and he was totally shocked as clearly he’d been fine with it, whereas to me it was a sign it wasn’t working.

Revenge

According to a study commissioned by Danny Wallace for is book ‘F*** you very much’, 14% of Brits have taken revenge against someone who was rude to them. If you’re going to get very assertive, which some people may feel is rude, watch out! I do worry about people spitting in my food sometimes, even when, to my mind, I’m being completely reasonable.

Enjoying it too much

While being assertive can sometimes be scary and unpleasant, it can also be enjoyable. In fact, it can become addictive so watch out! I remember being a bit freaked out when I finally got control of the troublesome Spanish children I was teaching English to and actually started to quite enjoy the feeling of power.

Have you experienced these or any others? I’d love to hear your experiences!