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Some people are more confrontational than others.
I usually resort to avoidant behavior first. Best resort varies according to the situation.

Courtesy, politeness, basic respect can help avoid rubbing people the wrong way, and have a more pleasant and less tense environment.

But all people can’t all like each other, or even minimally get along. Some are straightforward about it, some are passive-aggressive, some are hypocritical.

If being “civil” has a bad sound from anti-civ perspective, then let’s use the word conviviality as something that’s generally desireable.

The acts described in the TOTW prompt can be characterized as petty, disproportionate, misguided, and malicious. Maybe it was worth it for them for the laughs or satisfaction they got out of the schadenfreude.

Since these foolish acts of aggression cannot be eliminated, how should people on the receiving end react, or be proactive towards?

Paranoia against petty out-of-hand “pranks” (or rather harassment) is not a pleasant way to live, but safety precautions are advisable. I hope this opportunity can serve as motivation for strengthening the awareness of potential threats in spaces that advertise themselves as dangerous, and not to let our guards down too much in the places where we feel safe.

After being on the receiving end of an act of petty aggression/harassment, one begins to consider at what point one may retaliate, and how (not all ponder these things, some just react fueled by anger). Overreacting to such an act by escalating agression would perpetuate a cycle of petty revenge, but one also doesn’t want to encourage this type of action by letting it pass unremarked.

Ideally, one could reprimand or threaten the culprit by saying or proving they got off easy this time, but that usually you are prepared to defend yourself to avoid such petty attacks in a way that would impose immediate costs (in the form of pain, humiliation, payment) on the would be culprit.

Some people feel emboldened by circumstances, or by the power facilitated to them by tech in the case of doxing for example, and play out their revenge fantasies without consequences. So in short, it’s a mix of prevention and consequence as deterrence what’s needed, in a personal/interpersonal level.

Those that learn how to deal with these things in a measured and proportional way, do do without having to verbalize it like so, therefore it sounds silly to type it out; there’s an intuition component.

But other’s can’t be or won’t be bothered with playing nicely and we have to deal with them as best we can.