Do you know the situation when you witness a minor argument breaking out and one party just keeps escalating it? And there’s no way to physically remove anyone from the situation?
For example, your friend cracks a rude joke at their partner and the partner doesn’t like it at all, so they start bickering. And then your friend apologises, but the partner has a lot of built-up frustrations, so they are talking themselves into a frenzy and it becomes a horribly awkward situation for everyone. And you’re on holiday together, so you can’t just leave.
What do you do to calm such a person down before they work themselves up? I never know the right combination of words.
6 comments
Just fucking walk away, who or what is physically keeping you there?
Yup, then they do an interview with oprah and then a 6 part Netflix and a book in which they discuss their and your todgers?
Do nothing, say nothing. it’ll pass……but put the dog bowl away safely and don’t leave your Apache chopper unlocked.
You’re not Oprah. Step back and let them have at it. You saying calm down or whatever is likely to inflame the situation.
What do you mean you can’t just leave? Unless you’re on a plane or something, what stops you from taking a walk?
Sadly there are no right words to calm the person – once they have lost control of themselves you will have to wait for an appropriate moment. You could be assertive and direct – something like ‘I really feel uncomfortable with what is happening right now and do not want to be involved’. There are so many variables in this situation it’s just too tricky for a quick fix. Personally I would find something else to focus on which would demonstrates distancing myself from them; scroll on my phone, pick up a book, put some music on etc. I do hope this doesn’t happen too often for you – I would also revisit the situation, depending on the variables, (how important it is to me to maintain the relationships) to share my experience of their behaviours. Hope this helps
Disclaimer, the following advice is not something I would do except in extremis but it is as likely to work as anything else, *if doing nothing is not an option*.
Throw cold water into their face / faces.
This is going to sound instinctively like the worst possible advice and a way of only escalating the situation but a lot of the time a shock is whats required to make someone come out of an emotion-driven loop.
As they snap out of it, step between them and whoever they are wound up at and state firmly *something that based on your knowledge of them will help*. Something along the lines of “Stop this – you are hurting yourself and achieving nothing. Turn around and walk away and we’ll talk”, but tailored
70 years ago, people would be saying to slap them to snap them out of it, and fortunately we’ve moved on from that but the same underlying logic applies and often works