How to Avoid a Fight
Someone near you is angry. Now what do you do?
I don’t think I am the first person to notice that we are living in a moment of unavoidable free-floating rage. We feel it creeping toward us as soon as we open our anything: eyes, doors, screens, screen doors,multiple containers of ultra-processed snacks. I probably don’t need to mention news sources but too late. I just did. So we must be ever vigilant to neither slip into a rage or provoke a rage in someone else by learning how to identify the earliest warning signs of escalating tension and then developing a cogent plan of escape.
Toward that end, there are many delicate behavioral adjustments that will need to made to guarantee that things function smoothly. When I say ‘things’, I am referring to whatever you call your minimum level of sanity. And when I say ‘function smoothly’, I’m referring to your ability to get to your car with maybe a little time left over for a snack before you drive off in a hurry. In this piece we will skip over the omni-present causes of the rage. I will trust you to supply your own.
What credentials do I have for giving this kind of advice? Well, I am a hetero-normative cis male relationship survivor of over half a century. I believe that makes me as much of an expert on the inner workings of this unstable bedrock component of the human family dynamic as anyone else currently pretending to understand how such a vortex of turbulence and mangled logic was able to keep itself in power for centuries.
That is the premise with which I am going to attempt to write this piece. So for my sake, just play along.
TIP # 1: BEWARE A SMILING MONKEY
It is useful to study our relatives the monkeys, with whom we share 98% of our DNA. I think you will agree that since 98% is quite a lot of DNA, there must be something to learn here. (Of course, we also share 75% of our DNA with the fruit fly. But as far as I can tell, even RFK Jr. is not yet suggesting that human females should be giving birth on a piece of fermented fruit. Possibly it hasn’t occurred to him yet but until it does, monkeys it is! )
From monkeys we learn that a lovely beaming smile is not necessarily a signal to come hither. It may not mean that you should relax and offer the smiling monkey a refreshing beverage. That is because, with both monkeys and humans, there are different kinds of smiles. Even in Malaysia.
is a lot. Observe how the monkey above is smiling in such a beguiling way that I personally would have offered them food, a place to live and a nice monthly stipend. But how wrong I would have been! Because although even a truly distressed smiling monkey may not own any firearms, a truly distressed human with an equally charming grin must never be trusted.
In the following chart, we see a large group of furious humans who could easily be judged incorrectly because they are not making traditional anger faces. And yet, we can be certain that 100% of them are, in fact, seething with rage.
TIP #3 SMILING MEN IN SUITS=PROBABLY ANGRY MEN
As time goes on and you head into your decrepitude years, you discover that certain people never bothered developing a range of emotions. Anger was so simple and easy to download that they just maxed out on anger and stopped right there. The only way to know if you are in the presence of this kind of individual is to snap a photo of them the moment you meet . Now excuse yourself, run to a bathroom and blow up that photo as big as possible in order to examine each of the facial details at close range. This gives you a chance to assess if any actual mirth levels are present in their “smile”.
Conversely, too much visible mirth is also a bad sign. This is especially true of women. Could the woman below have reached this level of gaiety simply by making a bar of soap into a substantial lather? No. A closer look reveals that she is about to have a psychotic break.
I want very badly to claim that smiling masked rage is more common in human men than in human women. However google AI says that is NOT TRUE. On the other hand, google AI identified a photo of me thusly.
And for crying out loud, take a look at all the stuff they got wrong! For example, everyone knows I discovered Adam Faith, not vice versa.
Tip#4: LEARN TO READ FACE AND BODY LANGUAGE
When encountering an angry human, a preliminary examination of their body language should be your very first priority.
EXHIBIT A: A WOMAN WHO DOES NOT UNDERSTAND BODY LANGUAGE
Below we see a couple in the midst of a difficult argument that might never have happened if the woman had the ability to correctly read her partner’s body language.
By meticulously scrutinizing his facial features, this woman would have noticed the widening of his eyes, the arching of his eyebrows. the clenching of both his jaw AND his fingers. All of these are clear, non-verbal cues meant to transmit the message “I would much prefer that you NOT strangle me.”
Yet because this woman was in a hurry, she ignored his body language and stayed the course, remaining focused only on locating his trachea. She was unaware that since he is 6 inches taller and 75 pounds heavier, she really should be in her car by now, and pulling into the parking lot of a diner 15 miles away. Get out of there now, strangling woman!
EXHIBIT B: BEWARE GRAPEFRUIT MOUTH
Next we examine some photos of primates engaging in “grapefruit mouth’ by opening their mouths wide enough to insert an entire grapefruit.
By duplicating this expression, sans the fruit, they are indicating to each other that this terrifying facial configuration offers a better chance at winning the argument than any of the weak verbal points they were barely able to formulate fully.
If you find yourself staring into “grapefruit mouth”, postpone all further discussions and do not resume until you are 15 miles away and enjoying a snack in your locked car.
EXHIBIT C: DECIPHERING MALE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS
It is a scientifically proven fact that human men have evolved biologically to tune out the sound of a woman’s voice as soon as she begins speaking. Their brains have learned to automatically file the word-like sounds she is making inside a sound-proof bin with other annoying background noises like refrigerator hum and leaf blower. Anthropologists believe this unusual cerebral adaptation was the fault of most civilizations for never having discovered a way to turn female speaking into a competitive international team sport with exciting annual playoffs.
How do you know if the man you are talking to is paying any attention? In the photo below, we see some men who were photographed during a moment when they said they were definitely paying attention
Compare and contrast their expressions to those of men who admit they totally tuned out at least fifteen minutes ago
. Because these two states of being are almost identical, reading a man’s facial expressions can be a challenge. The only way to be sure that he is paying attention is if HE is doing the talking. Therefore it is critical for the other party in the conversation to handle their own angry reactions as gracefully as possible. Some time honored methods of transforming boiling rage are :gastro intestinal disorders, hives, heart palpitations, headaches and uncontrollable sobbing.
EXHIBIT D: DECIPHERING MALE HAND GESTURES
In this next photo, we have the rare opportunity to observe a hetero-normative cis male deciding to take control of an angry conversation by engaging in a very common behavioral technique known as “Hiding”. So convinced is he of the invisibility that this gesture is providing that I found these photos of him online exhibiting this behavior in two totally different households without ever even bothering to change his clothes.
2. Double handed “I CAN’T WITH THIS.
You’ve seen it before: the squinty eyes, the turned head, the hands held out as if to block the trajectory of the sound waves being produced by a female voice! All three combine to create the non-verbal message that whatever point she is trying to make, HE JUST CAN’T WITH THIS. To be fair, he is preoccupied with complicated thoughts about the big win he had last night during a round of “Doom: The Dark Ages.” Come on! He was playing live against 200 people and almost came in SECOND! So the sooner she throws in the towel, the faster he can get back in the game.
TIP#5: STRATEGIES FOR A PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT
Finally, it is important to know when your opponent is trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement. Or as they say in Malaysian Monkey: Saya tak ada nia jahat!
Of course, once again this is all so much less confusing with monkeys than it is with human beings. In the case of human males, the body language for apologizing and the body language for impending assault can be nearly identical.
Once you have made a determination of what you are dealing with, (or heard lip smacking) you have a narrow window of time to make your next move. This brings us back to our earlier problem: What would have been a better course of action for the strangling woman than strangling?
It’s surprisingly simple.
Instead of reaching out to strangle, instead move ahead to step one:
Very few humans of any gender can resist a pile of delicious brownies. So while the brownies are working their magic, what strangling woman should have done is quickly head for her car. In a situation where anger is loose, getting out of there is the biggest win of all.
Which is why it is important to remember to always have some delicious brownies stored in your glove compartment.
Stay safe. That is all for now.
This is excellent.
Loved this, Sandie.