When do you get defensive?

My moments definitely occur -- it can be hard for me to admit I'm wrong (though usually I'm prone to self-torture instead of getting openly defensive per se).

Other people can say pretty much anything and I'll either ignore them or cry and cry. Sad really.

Aww, you brought something for Ronan.

Is that ellipsis at the end evidence that ktee is A VERY BAD MANG (or WOMANG)?!?!

http://www.empireonline.co.uk/news/news.asp?3976

I generally become preemptively defensive when I'm telling someone (who hasn't seen me) about my body shape. And I've also experienced the annoyance and shame that you mention.

However, if I care about the person, I tend to worry how they would take a particular comment.

Clearly one must try harder. If you will.

I think the legend of Ronan's Pissery is truly a sight to behold.

oh and when anyone makes fun of the monkees.

"Teasing when I can't really be sure of the intent of the teaser (or just when raw nerves are hit). I get totally humourless and sour."

im like that also. i tend to hit back a bit harder than is sometimes necessary. and then feeling bad after.

I get defensive when people criticize me for bad qualities I've already confessed to them that I have and struggle with.

^^ This is possibly a bad quality that I have and struggle with, actually

E.g.,

- someone's dropping by my place
- I say "this is embarrassing, but it's really messy, and I feel horrible and sensitive about that, so ... is that okay? is that a big deal to you if it's embarrassingly messy?"
- person says yes
- person arrives and says "OMG it is FILTHY in here, WTF is wrong with you"
- I get wounded and defensive because I spent all that time disclaiming this and explaining that I'm sensitive about it

I'm not very touchy about little stuff but sometimes it'll come out in weird ways. A few weeks ago I had a fight w/ my wife that in retrospect was hilariously trivial because I made breakfast, my eggs were runny, and she pointed it out. I searched for a polite way to say "if you don't like my eggs you can make your own," failed, and it kind of escalated from there to shouting and door-slamming, the whole nine.

why would you marry someone who doesn't like runny eggs??!?!?!?

well, she asked for over medium, but it turns out i don't really know the difference between over easy and over medium.

I get defensive whenever someone suggests I have failed to meet my obligations, when what I have done is simply failed to meet their desires.

This is much more likely to happen in personal relationships than on the job. Family, friends and lovers can sometimes fall into the error of thinking it is your job to make them happy and if you do not, you are guilty of a failure and a shortcoming. I try to disabuse them of this nonsense before it gets out of hand.

Jobs usually have better-defined obligations. When your boss tries to guilt you into doing more than you are paid to do, it is truly a poisonous problem.

i don't think 'defensive' covers it, but i definitely get reactive when other people patronize my brains or make assumptions about my tastes based on my sexuality. i don't necessarily feel i have to defend myself against anything, but i tend to focus a lot more energy on the offending person than is wise.

Haha: per the above, if I made the eggs runny, I would serve them while saying "oh man I made them too runny, I'm really sorry, I think what I did wrong was XYZ" (and then when they were still criticized I would make the person feel like a dick for doing it)

That's not a recommendation, obviously

I am trying to think of situations where I don't get defensive.

nabisco i do that all the time. i'm pretty self-critical so anytime i feel like i might have failed or messed up i tend to completely overdo the apologetic preface. the worst is at like, med school interviews were it's i have to prevent myself from giving a panicky five minute justification of the c- i got in differential algebra before we even sit down

"Teasing when I can't really be sure of the intent of the teaser (or just when raw nerves are hit). I get totally humourless and sour."

^^^ this, plus, when it's like two people doing it. And they're all jolly good friends of mine, but two on one starts to feel really hemmed-in and my blood pressure goes up, etc.

If anyone cares, I should probably clarify one part of what I said above.

OTOH, I am fine and dandy with people expressing disappointment that I failed to meet their desires, so long as they express it in those terms, rather than as my failure to do what I was supposed to do.

Similarly, I'm OK with a boss asking me to do more than my job description, so long as it is expressed in terms of a task that needs to be done, a request for me to do it, and a recognition that it is beyond my normal obligations. That is straightforward and evokes no defensiveness on my part.

I'm really not a total dickhead.

# When do you get defensive? [Started by Tracer Hand in June 2002, last updated 59 seconds ago by Doctor Casino on I Love Everything] 13 new answers
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tbf thats not much of a coincidence

when people tell me i'm being defensive, cuz i never realise it at the time. and then i'm like, well, i'm being attacked, of course i'm being defensive, what else am i supposed to do?

also when people make assumptions about me and think they can extrapolate stuff about my entire personality based on throwaway comments or whatever.

^Uh yeah this. Stock reply: "Does that mean you're being...offensive?"

"when people tell me i'm being defensive, cuz i never realise it at the time. and then i'm like, well, i'm being attacked, of course i'm being defensive, what else am i supposed to do?"

i do the same. i try and temper the defensiveness sometimes but then you feel youre not really defending yourself properly and then i stop bothering with the nice way to say it.

This is when I get defensive...

i get mad defensive whenever i'm told that i'm doing some simple household task (that i've been doing a certain way for years) incorrectly

".....what are you doing? That's not how you fold a shirt."

"Teasing when I can't really be sure of the intent of the teaser (or just when raw nerves are hit)"
"I get defensive when people criticize me for bad qualities I've already confessed to them that I have and struggle with"

^ both of these. The first because I find certain types of people very hard to read (mostly confident poshos), and then defensiveness becomes like a default mode for me. The second because I get really bored with repetition (e.g. in-jokes) and find that getting angry and embarrassing is the best way to get it to stop.

Yes, that's a good one too, Hoos. Also when people (again, mostly poshos) correct me on etiquette points - it's instantly WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!

Most of all I get defensive when I'm into something and the person I'm with isn't, or worst of all doesn't take it seriously. e.g. when the Beatles Anthology II came out I took it to a friends so we could listen to the acoustic versions of 'Strawberry Fields' - she used this momentous occasion to try out the varispeed on her tape deck, making it sound like the chipmunks. I'm a little embarrassed at how badly I reacted, but SERIOUSLY, WHO DOES THIS?!

PS Nabisco - how bad must your flat be if a guest doesn't even feel the need to be polite about it?

At my old job, when our web team got called out at meetings for not doing something, when the reason was because we are not mind-readers about projects that had never involved us whatsoever. explaining this apparently = getting defensive. bunch of utterly incompetent managers, all of them. actually the entire experience of that job was dealing with like six layers of managers, who did no actual work except go to meetings, and dumped unreasonable/unnecessary/time-wasting projects on their staff. I'm glad I don't work there any more.

I think saying "you're getting defensive" means.. 'I just gave some completely subjective (or completely wrong) criticism, but I have to prove I'm objectively correct, so I'll accuse the other person of not agreeing with me.' It's really out of line IMHO, kind of a bullying tactic, there is actually nothing wrong with disagreeing or being upset when someone is criticizing or attacking you.

I think saying "you're getting defensive" means.. 'I just gave some completely subjective (or completely wrong) criticism, but I have to prove I'm objectively correct, so I'll accuse the other person of not agreeing with me.'

Yes. I get accused of being defensive any time I try to argue a point.

Love the old middle school accusation.
"You have a crush on ___ _____!"
"What? No I don't."
"Then why are you being defensive?"
"I'm not."
"You're being defensive!"
"I'm not being defensive!!!"
"SEE!"

I would totally banish "defensive" in this sense from the English language, if I could, on grounds that it is poisonous.

"I get defensive when people criticize me for bad qualities I've already confessed to them that I have and struggle with"

See this becomes about criticizing yourself on top of another person's criticism, when in fact that person is the one being inconsiderate.

HOOS, another favorite of mine is when I try to argue a point, "don't get upset, don't get angry," and it's like.. uh actually what is happening is that I disagree? Such a cop out.

I get defensive when people act out their badly trained 'assertiveness' skills, especially in the workplace.

Considering what an accepted mantra/'truth' it is that there are 3 styles of communication [assertiveness, aggressiveness and passive], it's amazing how poor some of the rationale behind this is. For example, the wikipedia entry on assertiveness is almost threadbare in terms of citations.

And some of the main techniques used in assertiveness:

- 'Broken Record' - "This consists of simply repeating your requests every time you are met with illegitimate resistance"

- 'Fogging' - "which consists of finding some limited truth to agree with in what an antagonist is saying"

- 'I statements' - "used to voice one's feelings and wishes from a personal position without expressing a judgment about the other person or blaming one's feelings on them"

for the record this question was asked not about times you were unjustly accused of being defensive, but about times when you actually were

I get defensive when people suggest I'm bad or irresponsible with money. I used to be, but shit I am very wise and balanced at it now so what the heckiny?

I get defensive when someone acts like I am dumb or incompetent because I am a woman. Likewise I get defensive when some guy starts treating me like his little doll, esp. when they touch me. Like at one job a customer thought I was in his way, so he grabbed my waist and tried to move me. I was wicked seething angry. I told him off good, but not loudly, and damn if it wasn't hard to strike him in the face. I think this form of defensiveness is reasonable.

My parents quit doing this, thank goodness, but I would get especially defensive when they told me something bad that happened was a consequence of me being a sinner. Defensive/horribly offended. Yelling and crying defensive.

My mom-in-law has this astonishingly incorrect hypothesis that makes me crazy defensive – that my father molested me when I was too young to remember and that I "repressed" it. That has been a mighty sore point of contention between us, her claiming this repeatedly. The thing is with her, the more you argue something like that isn't true, the more she's convinced it IS true. She'll say, "the Abbie doth protest too much." To the point where I've seriously used all my will to restrain myself physically from doing something that might accidentally kill or severely injure her.

So I got even MORE deeply defensive when she suggested getting raped was all my fault, and that I was "vulnerable" to it because I'd been "molested by my father." wtf. I mean she insisted over and over, and of course me disagreeing and yelling and getting mad made her believe more and more she was correct. Even more maddening bcz she's a fucking therapist and imagine one of her poor clients having to hear this.

I was wicked seething angry. I told him off good, but not loudly, and damn if it wasn't hard to strike him in the face.

Good for you. How'd he react?

that's fucked up abbott

when ppl are patronizing/condescending towards me, i guess

oftentimes when ppl are calling me out on my more egregious flaws, naturally

and yeah, abbott, wtf?

How'd he react?

He was flabbergasted. "Wait, she's a human?"

"It can speak!"

I just go for the traditional: getting defensive when I know that my accuser is OTM about whatever they are accusing me of. So the opposite of the horrendous situation Abbott is in.

ljubljana - that's me too. the deader the aim of the comment the more inflamed and outraged my sense of justice.

I generally go into great detail not only about why they are wrong, but also about all the extenuating circumstances, which obviously wouldn't be necessary if they really were wrong, until I can feel everyone's eyes upon me and almost see a giant collective thought bubble reading 'woah'.