Questions tagged [difficult-people]
For questions involving people who have shown a tendency to be stubborn, uncomprehending, or otherwise difficult to communicate with. Use this tag for issues like personality conflicts, not for difficulties arising from a physical or mental condition.
151
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How do I kick one person out of a friend group, without alienating those who support them?
I have a group of friends I like to hang out with on discord nearly every evening. We have known each other for over a decade now and even if someone moved away, they'll still be online regularly.
...
- 121
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2
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How can I survive in a 'guess' culture?
Recently I read an article on 'ask' and 'guess' culture1, and it brought me a lot of clarity. It explains the reason behind many of the interpersonal conflicts that I faced during the past 10-20 years ...
- 258
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1
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681
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Helping daughter deal with overwhelming 'friend'
My step-daughter is very tolerant of other people, and kind-hearted. She is also quite mature for her age (11) and is not emotionally volatile like some of the other children in her class. I don't for ...
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4
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568
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How to deal with an egoistic friend who only talks politics and religion?
I'm 27 M (living in India). I have this friend (say John). We were school classmates for 9 years. We shared a good relationship during school days but our mentality and perspectives to look at the ...
- 141
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3
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874
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How can I interact smoothly with a manipulative person?
I have a colleague (from now on called C) that I voluntarily work with (in a non-corporate environment) because we could get some work done that could be generally beneficial, including to both of us (...
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2
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How do I convince someone that I "Just don't want to be friends again" if they are in denial about it
Almost exactly a year ago, I met this guy through a university society and since we both studied the same subject, I agreed to chat and meet him before lectures a few times. He would message me ...
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1
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547
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What if I could prevent a conversation from turning into pure guesswork?
I've had some serious stuff to handle over the last month or so. And it sadly wasn't the stuff you could keep easily quiet. To make things worse, the main actor that created this mess has apparently a ...
- 33.8k
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1
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417
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How to deal with my grandma and aunt's hurtful behavior towards my family? [closed]
I am an unmarried 22 year old girl in college. I have a mother, father and brother who is also doing his masters in college. We live in India and all stay together in a flat. I'm the youngest in my ...
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Relative emailed me demanding to know my political views because they disliked my wife's Facebook posts
This morning I received an email from a relative demanding that I state my political viewpoints on a hot-button topic in US politics because his political views are opposite from those that are being ...
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1
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How to convince adult child to pay for their keep
I’m asking advice for a close friend of ours. Let me give some background first. They have a 24 year old daughter that lives with them in the United States. She is the single mom of a 3 year old. ...
- 169
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Preventing certain topics from being raised by a close relative
My friend (I got her consent to ask this question here) is currently dealing with major depression and anxiety issues (she is currently on therapy and medication), which started after a messy breakup -...
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How can I respectfully ask my landlady to use English when in my home?
When our landlady comes into our place she always brings a relative. She visits with repair people, or most often it's a family member doing repairs. When they talk to us, they use fluent English. ...
2
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1
answer
705
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How can I communicate with my family and friend that they would appreciate the way I am?
I don't know...one day I was told by a friend that I was being too persnickety. I don't know that word to be honest so I looked up. Persnickety means someone being picky or fussy. I don't think I am ...
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2
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2
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389
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Can't get through to someone who needs help
I've known someone through a social activity group for about a year. At first he seemed a bit odd, but more or less harmless. He's a smart and funny guy and it can be good talking with him in short ...
- 370
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3
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How to Deal With A Manipulative and Pretentious Person
17-year-old male living in the U.S. here.
I have a "friend" (Let's call him X) who I've known for 4 years and known well for 2 years. He is probably the most pretentious and manipulative ...
- 51
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4
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885
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Figuring out interesting questions in friendly or romantic conversations
How can I figure out which questions are interesting and will be pleasant for the person to whom they are addressed to answer?
I am a person who has an extreme problem conveying what he wants to ...
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How to resolve a conflict with a noisy neighbor and a passive landlord?
(This is mostly a copy of a question I asked over at Law.SE. I'm reposting it here following the advice of a commenter to look for solutions with a more interpersonal appraoch.)
I have a friend who ...
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Transactional Analysis: Dealing with a "Rebellious Child" [closed]
Transactional Analysis analyzes social transactions to determine the ego state of the patient (whether parent-like, childlike, or adult-like) as a basis for understanding behavior.
A Child ego state ...
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3
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How to avoid former friend who is being creepy?
I have a guy friend who likes me romantically. I already turned him down through his friend (he asked a mutual friend to ask me if I like him, I told him no, and his friend told him my reply). After ...
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How to deal with a depressed person who thinks people are uniting against her?
Let's call this person Alice.
Alice is currently in therapy and taking drugs to treat a long lasting depression. Alice is also quite egocentric i.e. likes to be in everybody's focus and tries to get ...
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2
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639
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How to handle someone who never gets important stuff done
I have problems with my girlfriend taking forever to get stuff done. To the point where it really causes problems in our relationship.
She took forever to get her passport (we almost missed a massive ...
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2
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How to (politelly) tell a martial arts instructor that I am interested only in part of his curriculum?
I am increasingly under the impression that martial arts classes are really tough places when it comes to practicing Interpersonal Skills. I have failed miserably once and already more or less given ...
- 202
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2
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How to Resolve Underlying Tension with my Best Friend
I have a friend, that we'll call Alex, who I've been friends with for years. He's a good guy and our relationship is generally pretty good, but over the past few years there's been a kind of ...
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639
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How to deal with a person with weird outlook towards things [closed]
I got mingled with a certain person in office. He seemed a nice guy so we often have chit-chat and he is the kind of person who always laughs or at least chuckles, almost always. I will now refer to ...
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243
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How to handle a professor disrupting workspace peace? [closed]
So I'm currently an international (Latin) grad student at some US university and wanted to know how to improve my current work space situation.
I share an office with another 2 Chinese grad students, ...
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42
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5
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How do I politely hint to customers to leave my store, without pretending to need to leave myself?
I own a small gelato juice bar with a piddling number of seats for customers. I'm working alone right now; my employees returned to school and I haven't hired yet.
Too frequently, after buying and ...
user2423
12
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4
answers
5k
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How to tell my mother not to visit?
I left my mother's home to live on my own 8,5 years ago. Since then, no one in my family has visited me once. Some years ago, my mother even dismissed my idea to visit me when I suggested to do so, I ...
- 3,115
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1
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397
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Can I get my coworkers to consider using new techniques at work?
I work in a small team of 5 web developers.
The team currently is used to using some poor and outdated coding and work practices that make development harder and inconvenient, and overall make our ...
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5
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1
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How to ask a noisy housemate to be quieter?
I've lived in an apartment with my two housemates for 10 months. One housemate is not very problematic. The other, however, has become very noisy within the past few months.
Ever since summer has ...
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6
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1
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559
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How to deal with people that are not able to confront you with Problems they have with you
In the last years I often find myself in situations where people tell me they got problems with other people and are going to remove them from their life if they don't change their attitude.
The ...
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2
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1k
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How do I interact with a person at a bare minimum level without seeming excessively rude?
How do I interact with a person at a bare minimum level without seeming excessively rude?
Background:
I had an incident a couple months ago where a friend of mine told me that a person Yanny from our ...
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1
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My girlfriend occasionally blocks me on social media
We have known each other for almost a year, and have been dating for more than 6 months. Most of the time it has been going really well; we like each other and enjoy each other's company. For most of ...
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0
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163
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Becoming a better mentor [closed]
I'm looking for advice on mentoring others (or perhaps communication in general).
I'm a newly promoted Senior engineer in my company and I'm managing a new hire for my company. It's been 2 months, ...
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1
answer
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Working to resolve a safety issue after having been lied to by the person responsible
Background
A couple sinkholes have appeared in a drainage area behind my house, which is surrounded by other houses in our neighborhood. The area is normally flat, dry, and grassy, so I used to play ...
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677
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How do I tell authorities that my narcissistic father is emotionally blackmailing my sister?
Refer to question that led me to ask this question How to call out narcissistic father on emotionally blackmailing my sister
I am considering calling the police station to explain my situation and ...
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2
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2k
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How do I get a classmate who is creepy to leave me alone? [closed]
My classmate and 'friend' is really starting to creep me out. It was obvious that he liked me and did weird stuff earlier this year, but I just shrugged it off. Now I’m starting to get creeped out. He ...
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2
votes
1
answer
563
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How to deal with a friend that thinks he is always right? [closed]
I have a friend who I got to know through playing video games. I've known him for about 7 years now and have met him in person about 14 times.
We've been actively playing together for 4 years and ...
- 121
3
votes
1
answer
404
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Asking an update from a friend who agreed to help me but who didn't respond me last time
I have a friend who agreed to help me on something half a year ago.
Around the winter holidays, last time we chatted, I told him I was ready to implement my plan but he told me that he was upset that ...
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4
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2
answers
738
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My friend always complains he's late, but doesn't want to eliminate the causes
I've got a close friend/roommate who is often late, (I'd say about 25% to 50% of the time, he'll be 15min to 1hour late). I've gotten used to it and it doesn't bother me too much personally.
But it ...
- 171
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4
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How can I get a drunk person to understand that I don't want to talk to them?
Today I was busing coding/programming in a bar/pub, had my headphones in (as I always do), trying to concentrate on my work. Around 2 PM an obviously-drunk man walks in and orders a beer, then starts ...
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Dealing With Unwanted, Repeated, Public Advances
TL;DR
Meghan, a member of a close friend group, is pushing me to attend an event with her via repeated, public statements. I find these confusing, distracting, and would like them to stop, with ...
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2
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485
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Difficult friend refuses to compromise regarding social outings [closed]
I have a pair of friends who I like to hang out with a great deal. We like to go out once a week. However, one of these friends refuses to go to any bar more than a few miles from his house. I end up ...
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1
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Suggestions for "how to approach a person who try to debate without facts and figures.?" [closed]
We few people had a debate on a topic and we were putting our opinions/views but 1 person whose basics are even not clear without any figures trying to prove his words among us.
How can we approach ...
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6
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1
answer
602
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How do I get my friends to understand that I won't be social ALL the time and tolerate their scoff when I say 'I'm studying'
For a few months, I've been going out to wherever they've called. Spent money on food outside, had drinks with these folks. I have my exams coming up. Every time I get a text saying 'Hey, what's up! ...
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2
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3
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637
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Communicate to a group of friends that I dislike their unreliability
I have a small group of friends, consisting of three people (names changed obviously): Leon (he's 20, know him for about 6 years or so), Andi (19, know him for roughly a year) and Chris (18, also know ...
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My sister refuses to help clean. Our shared room is extremely cluttered and our relationship becoming strained. How can I get her to help out?
I share a bedroom with my younger sister, she is currently 15 and I am 20. Recently I have been becoming very stressed out with the clutter in the room. I begun cleaning out my own belongings, ...
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1
answer
511
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How do I tell a friend that I am no longer interested in working on a project that we have invested a lot of time
I have already posted the question on the Workplace, but someone commented that it is more of an interpersonal skill question.
My friend started a project exactly two years ago, the project is an ...
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4
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2
answers
541
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How to calm a person's fears about using a taxi to find and travel to work?
An acquaintance needs to find a decent-paying job in her field, because she and her husband have no savings and her husband has a life expectancy of around two years. She is 50 and they have two ...
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2
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How do I tell my friend that she is, indeed, rude?
My friend recently texted me asking if she's mean to people and/or a bully, explaining to me that people at work told her she was. Unfortunately, she has a handful of negative characteristics and a ...
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2
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564
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How do I deal with some of my mean classmates? [closed]
Flashback
Today when I entered in class, I came late due to the fact that I’m in flow that I stayed on telephone. And when I came to school, I asked Chemistry teacher to annulate my absence, and an ...
- 567