50 Hilarious Times People Were Passive-Aggressive To Each Other

According to licensed marriage and family therapist Epstein, there are a number of reasons why people end up passive-aggressive. "Some adults learned from a young age that showing anger wouldn't be tolerated well. Their parents couldn't tolerate their emotional expression so they learned to subtly indicate their emotions. Or the child learns that anger is 'bad' but as it turns out, you can't turn anger off. So you express it in subtle ways," she explained to Bored Panda via email.

"In these scenarios, passive aggression is actually an adaptive response to a tough situation. But the coping skill outlives its usefulness in adulthood and now the passive aggressive adult is hard to be in a relationship with," she shared.

Others may become passive-aggressive because they weren't taught to communicate effectively. "They have no skills to express themselves in difficult situations. Some may even believe that expressing themselves passively is doing the right thing because then they aren't burdening others with outward expressions of anger. In reality, as we know, passive aggression creates more problems than it solves," Epstein said.

"Passive aggression works... kinda. A person who uses passive aggression can avoid confrontation and difficult feelings. Sometimes, they can manipulate a situation to their liking. Some may even take joy in others' discomfort."

Meanwhile, we were curious about what could help someone identify if they're being passive-aggressive. Marriage and family therapist Epstein was kind enough to walk us through a few things that people can ask themselves: 

• "Do I express my anger directly when I feel it?
• How do I handle being upset? Do I tell the person I feel upset with?
• Do I use gestures and noises to do the work of direct communication (like sulks, sighs, and pouts)?
• Do I keep score about my hurts without sharing that score keeping?
• Do I use backhanded compliments or the silent treatment?
• Do I feel chronically underappreciated but fail to bring it up and get to the root of the issue?
• Would I rather talk to a third party about my frustration than the person who hurt me?
• Do I act out resentment?"

As a whole, passive-aggressive behavior is something that you really want to avoid. It has the potential to damage people’s well-being on a phenomenal scale, whether it happens at the office or elsewhere.

At its core, this sort of behavior causes issues for everyone because it creates a deep dissonance between the front someone’s presenting (e.g. that everything’s all right and that everyone’s doing well) and the reality of the situation (e.g. that there are plenty of problems that need urgent attention). Folks might embrace passive aggression because they hate conflict, may not know how to have healthy arguments, or because they enjoy criticizing everyone around them. 

According to the Harvard Business Review, passive-aggressive bosses can find ways to shut down your ideas without explaining what’s wrong, or they might act dismissively toward you by rolling their eyes, ignoring you when you’re speaking, or (over) using sarcasm. Naturally, that causes a lot of frustration to build up in the workplace. After all, it’s an unpleasant feeling to know that your boss doesn’t respect or trust you enough to treat you like an equal.