How to deal with haters and social enemies

[sushi]

especially in real life situations/social situations and work

people who obsessively attack you or hate your presence for no reason

what strategies do you develop to deal with them

of course its more frequent in hollywood or politics especially when your fame rises, but its a common phenomenon for eveyone,

 

[Hadoblado]

I think it helps if you avoid thinking of people as enemies.

People are deeply flawed. Not your problem. If you start thinking of them as enemies you're allowing them to take up space in your head rent-free.

If someone makes life hard, I avoid them or confront them.

Sometimes they take up space in a lane that I want, and I have to weigh the value of that niche vs. the displeasure of dealing with assholes. I almost always find something else instead. I rarely want anything enough to deal with dumb shit.

 

[Cognisant]

My mother's sage advice "don't make enemies, destroy them".

Consider every possible direction you can attack them from:

Above
Appeal to authority, make it their problem, say this person is impeding your ability to do your job, obviously this works better if the authorities are inclined to favor your side of things, just don't tell them said person is your enemy or what to do about it instead let the authority figure think the punishment was their idea.

Below
Attack their foundations, people often cultivate skill/knowledge in a particular discipline/topic to serve as a crutch for their ego, kick the crutch, a great way to do this is to call them out on why they're hassling you as such motivations often tie into their own insecurities. This can backfire if you attack someone in a way that plays to their strengths or if you attack an area of assumed insecurity that isn't, particularly dangerous people may feign insecurity in some way as bait and a well prepared to punish you for taking it.

Behind
In essence "stop helping me", if someone's particularly hard to get at pretend to be on their side then undermine and sabotage them or better yet take their position to it's logical extreme to strawman them, this works best when you have an accomplice attacking them from the front. Obviously it's difficult to attack someone from behind when they've facing you because they've already identified you as an enemy.

Front
Ask someone "why are you being such an asshole?" and stare them down, maintain eye contact, most people can't deal with a combination of being asked a question they aren't prepared to answer and simultaneously put under the pressure of a possible direct confrontation. Others will just punch you, which in the right context might actually be a resounding victory.

I don't advocate an confrontational attitude, destroying enemies is effort intensive, if a rando on the street's rude to me I'm not going to bother with them, if they're sitting next to me at work I'll try to make peace first but if they choose to make my life difficult anyway then they've only themselves to blame.

 

[walfin]

especially in real life situations/social situations and work

people who obsessively attack you or hate your presence for no reason

what strategies do you develop to deal with them

of course its more frequent in hollywood or politics especially when your fame rises, but its a common phenomenon for eveyone,

There is usually a reason. More often than not, it is self interest and is caused by competition e.g. for promotions, raises, alliances with other colleagues etc. That's usually the raison d'être of office politics.

You never escape it but it's usually better at a small outfit, where people tend to be more cooperative, than a big outfit, provided that the market is not too bad. Otherwise, it's a free for all anywhere.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

It helps to not having ever taken others opinion of you seriously to begin with. Tbh I find it a bit amusing when people want to create frictions like that, as in they appear to me like they are mentally unstable or something.

 

[sushi]

I think it helps if you avoid thinking of people as enemies.

People are deeply flawed. Not your problem. If you start thinking of them as enemies you're allowing them to take up space in your head rent-free.

If someone makes life hard, I avoid them or confront them.

Sometimes they take up space in a lane that I want, and I have to weigh the value of that niche vs. the displeasure of dealing with assholes. I almost always find something else instead. I rarely want anything enough to deal with dumb shit.

i dont unless they stir trouble first, i am rarely the first type to start a quarrell or antagonize someone

coexistance is hard especially if you see them everyday at work, or at social gathering.

avoidance only works so far. its actually far more frequent in politics and hollywood, where you get character assisnation for being politically incorrect and offending the wrong people

 

[Rebis]

especially in real life situations/social situations and work

people who obsessively attack you or hate your presence for no reason

what strategies do you develop to deal with them

of course its more frequent in hollywood or politics especially when your fame rises, but its a common phenomenon for eveyone,

The best strategy to deal with them is make them feel small. If they have friends and you get along with them to the point in which they're constantly uncomfortable with how they dislike you, they can be swayed by group opinion. I didn't go intentionally about this but it just happened naturally. I'm not effect by them most of the time so I usually ignore it and since I'm happy in a lot of cases I can see it just makes them squirm.

If I was to abstract the situation, if this person was a gate-keeper to a group of people with low social standing within that group, I have stooped so low in the past to just completely go through them when they say something stupid. I'm friends with him now which is ironic, but this guy I knew Stephen was becoming disliked by a lot of people mainly because of his behaviour to girls in the group. Everyone seemed annoyed by him including me. One time during lunch it must've been something he said but I drilled into him for the next 30 minutes explaining all the ways he was a cunt and that no one wanted him here. This was infront of everybody too in a well-populated cafe (We had about 7 on our table and 7 friends behind us. I was calm, deliberate with my words and I didn't feign once. I went through his whole personality and told him how he was being a dick.

He was beside me on the seats so he couldn't exactly go anywhere. After this incredibly long drilling session everybody sat in relative silence for the next 5 minutes, he didn't say a word. I got up to get a bun and that was his queue to leave. People don't get to me much anymore, I've structured my life to not consider people's opinion of me to be important. I feel it's a part of growing up and realising that you can't chase invisible ghosts of what people want you to be, all you know is yourself and that's the only goal you can work towards.

For real though, people that exhibit this pettyness of personal warfare with others are just small people. Small, insignificant people. They're wasting their time, don't waste yours responded to their wasted time.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Well there are many ways to look at it.
The African saying, that even lion needs to swing at the flies says about the fact that no matter how petty the stuff gets you always have to deal with it one way or another which can be a little too distracting for work. So when I hear that people work somewhere and the environment is hostile it is little depressing. Certainly do not want to work with people if possible just for this fact.

Other side of problem is that people are hierarchical and so it can be a matter of dominance or control. Mostly women are controlling and men try to dominate. It is probably the thing that happens to people when growing up so the transfer the problem to work place. Ergo if your father was dominant you will try to be dominant at your work place. If your mother was controlling you will be controlling etc.

Other problems are low self awareness, generally lack of impulse control, arrogance, laziness etc. plain dumb behavior all can result in some conflict one way or another especially when you work in teams and people are very keen on bringing this junk to work life.

The worst part about this all is that it is life and it applies to all jobs where you work with people and pretty much all people tend to bring the positive and negative to work whether it be simple work or professional life.

Add pressure and stress and that brings up the worst in people.

 

[Elen]

I am always surprised when someone decides they don't like me or need to bully me. I move through the world pretty aimlessly or at least without intentionally causing strife. But it doesn't matter. Some people have decided to waste their energy hating me.

I generally ignore them or when forced to acknowledge their dislike for me I am good at making them realize they are acting like idiots.

I have learned some tricks from the extroverted feelers in the world. If somebody is nitpicking your work or is riding you about stuff that seems pointless you can ask them about themselves. It turns their focus away from you and onto themselves. "You seem stressed out today. You doing okay?" People love talking about themselves. Usually after a little prodding them they launch into why their lives suck right now and often end up appologizing for being a jackass. Not always but often.

It is harder when the crowd starts to turn on you. Sometimes someone will manage to turn everyone against you but it is hardly ever because you are unlikeable. It is almost always because most of the crowd is actually scared of the original instigator. In those kinds of situations it is generally best to get out of there if possible. You are surrounded by anxiety riddled self centered egoists and their cowardly hangers on who are all looking for their next feast. There is no room for growth for you there.

Sometimes a group will turn on you because you are violating some kind of unwritten and unspoken rule. In those cases you can try to figure out what you've done wrong. Often, in my experience, I don't figure it out till much later. Although, I think you are more likely to be quietly and coldly shut out than be actively hated in these cases.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Nothing will piss them off more than you just laughing it off and moving on quickly. Almost give the impression that you're enjoying it (hey if you do it right you might actually.)

Someone made fun of the shirt I was wearing asking "Did your mom get that shirt from [insert shitty department store]?" my response was a really smiley enthusiastic "Yeah!" and turned away to people I was actually interested in engaging with. His facial reaction is one of my proudest achievements. Later this dude would try to start a fight with me, and I just ignored him and moved on, all bark no bite.