I think that when we face stressing factors, there are things we should do (a) with ourselves, and (b) stressful factors

Regarding (a) we can resort to things like sports, camping , backpacking, drowning ourselves in prepping ( I do that ) and other similar hobbies.

Regarding (b) we might sometimes STOP the offensive person , or choose to psychologically belittle and ignore them ( just assume they are not smart enough and childish) , or for example you can inest in the situation ( example in picard thread where you ask the jerk for something in return ).

Sometimes you have to pull down the blinds ( keep the jerk from knowing how to bother you further) like me not telling my supervisor I have an office bug-in kit which includes some tools that could have saved the day a few times. I don't tell him because he will use those tools as excuse not to buy tools for work. And he will just use those tools and LOSE them. It hapened a few times with work stuff. He took stuff from our department to another and forgot where he put them. I found them there several weeks after , and during that period WE were in trouble because several people had to share a few tools.

Sorry, again using work-related examples. Maybe it is easier talking against work people that our own relatives.

So, back to the original question
What are your favorite techniques to deal with difficlut people ?

There was a similar thread about this a while back: Bathtub People

In that thread, I wrote:


That's a pretty good book on the topic and its a pretty quick read. I'd say its a worthwhile resource for those wanting to learn more.