I’m seeing an interesting pattern in my life. I can’t understand why I didn’t see it before: people who are passive aggressive are exactly the same as liars.

You know why we hate liars?

• We don’t know where we stand with them
• We can’t believe what they say and have to waste time going to verify it
• We’re then offended that they wasted our valuable time
• We don’t like it when people are fake

Guess why we don’t like passive aggressive people (and therefore, posts, etc)

1. We don’t know where we stand with them – is that post about us? If not, why are they talking about someone behind their back instead of dealing with the problem? If we have a problem with them, will the same thing happen?
2. They say one thing and mean another. So we never know what they mean, because they speak that passive aggressive language where something might be wrong, and it may be us they’re mad at but maybe not. Who wants to do all that work.
3. No one wants to have to play detective for every single conversation – waste of time! And energy!
4. As Elaine said to Jerry: Fake! Fake! Fake! Fake!

Compare each list and see if you can find the similarities.

Conclusion?

They? Are. Exactly. The same.

So the next time someone is getting all I wish some people would just stop doing that thing that makes me the victim, poor me .

…. Tell them to be direct about it, and they’ll have less problems.

Or if you’re direct (as I’m becoming now that I’m approaching my glorious 40s) you can say:

Your passive aggressive behavior is the same as lying. Actually it’s worse because at least a liar isn’t being a pussy about it. Just tell me what’s on your mind.