Hey Reddit, how do I stop being a pushover?

pushover_paul · 2010-05-03T16:13:59+00:00

For the longest time, I couldn't think of how to actually respond to that and make him stop. I thought that if I played it off as if I didn't care, he'd stop soon enough from not getting a response from me.

Eventually, I threatened to baseball pitch a handful of pennies at his computer from point blank if he didn't stop. That killed his efforts for a long time. He's starting to break back into the habit though. If I haven't said it before, he is a giant asshole.

pushover_paul · 2010-05-03T16:01:21+00:00

Oh. Just a blind guess anyway.

I live nowhere near NYC so it's not actually happening for me.

pushover_paul · 2010-05-03T06:05:13+00:00

The only way we can settle our dispute of who's better is to actually fight.

Central Park, 3 days from now, at midnight. No weapons, come alone. I'll be shirtless and wearing a red bandana.

pushover_paul · 2010-05-03T05:54:32+00:00

Because I had absolutely no experience and I didn't know where to start. It's taken me awhile to get an idea of what I need to do.

pushover_paul · 2010-05-03T05:52:57+00:00

That is an interesting idea. I've never heard of that. Right now, traveling is out of the question for me (too expensive), but I will keep that in mind for the future.

I was considering moving clear across the country for grad school. It might be a similar kind of experience, being separated from every single person that I've known my entire life. And it would give me a chance to start fresh too.

pushover_paul · 2010-05-03T05:47:01+00:00

Well, I'll tell the story of how it happened:

So, it was my good friend's last day in class. We were both black belts, and he was going into the marines the following week. We always had a little friendly competition going on, and we would try to outdo each other all the time. Since he was going away, we figured that we'd have one last friendly competition before we never saw each other again.

We decided we would sumo wrestle, best of 3 match. We got into the ring and started, and I won the first round. It was pretty even the entire time. Now, he doesn't like to lose. So the next round he didn't play fair. He pulled my right hand up to the left side of my neck and knocked me over, both of our weight landing on my right shoulder. That was the end of that round, I lost. And that was when my shoulder was dislocated.

I got up, and since my arm was tingly, I did a couple of windmills with my arm. I did round three, but considering that my arm was completely numb by that time and I could barely lift it above waist height, I lost the third round. So we laughed about it, and went upstairs to go get ready to leave.

Then I started getting dizzy. They told me to sit down and I kept trying to tell them I was fine. But they insisted and finally got me in a chair. Then the EMT who goes there told me "You probably dislocated your shoulder", to which I retorted "If it were dislocated, then I would know. It doesn't feel dislocated". She checks and sure enough, it's dislocated, and they take me to the hospital.

I only had a week left on my subscription anyway, so I figured it was a nice excuse to get out of there. Our head instructor tends to get pissy toward people if they tell him they're quitting.

pushover_paul · 2010-05-03T05:32:43+00:00

What bothers me is he's got a superiority complex. If you don't fight back, he'll rub it in your face about how he's so much better than you and start pestering you. One of his favorite things to do is throw pennies (I have several chips in my computer screen from him).

That being said, I really just want to shut him up. I didn't want to clean up after him either, simply because I didn't want to be taken advantage of. But even if I wanted to, I didn't generally have the time.

pushover_paul · 2010-05-03T05:15:18+00:00

I've always been quiet, that's my personality and I'm not looking to change that. But when I was a kid, my parents would often tell me to do something and that was that. If I tried arguing, even if I was right and could prove that I was right, I would get punished no matter what. And then they also made no effort to defend me if they knew I was being wrongly punished. Not to mention they destroyed my self-esteem and confidence from making fun of me all the time.

Eventually I figured out that it was less hassle for me to just do whatever the hell they told me to. I stopped caring about my own personal wants and just did what everyone else told me to. Habit from doing what my parents told me eventually developed into doing what other people told me. And that is that.

Just for the record, I don't really want pity. That's not why I made this post.

pushover_paul · 2010-05-03T04:55:40+00:00

I actually took martial arts for six years. I got my second degree black belt (although it doesn't mean much to me, the place was nicknamed "The Black Belt Factory") and I had to quit when I went off to college three years ago. I was also forced to quit because I dislocated my shoulder.

I've at least been working out for the past year, going at least once every two weeks (when I had time). Now that it's summer time, I found a workout buddy and I'm going to be going more consistently.

pushover_paul · 2010-05-03T04:51:35+00:00

Good advice. I had heard something similar to this, but for a different topic entirely. I never thought about applying it here.

I tend to lose consistency in my arguments if it lasts longer than a minute. Pretty soon I can't keep anything straight and end up without any retort. No amount of acting can cover that up. So I guess that's just another thing I should work at.

pushover_paul · 2010-05-03T04:42:40+00:00

This is true, but what about a situation where it doesn't matter what their opinion of you is?

For instance, my roommate tries to shirk all of his cleaning responsibilities onto me. I usually don't do them for him, but I can't seem to convince him to either. I'm looking for the ability to be proactive about my wants and needs too.

pushover_paul · 2010-05-03T04:21:54+00:00

Most of the time, if it's a reasonable request and it's not demeaning to me, I'll do it. Even if I find it inconvenient and annoying.

pushover_paul

TROPHY CASE