The days of the duel have long since past. This is both good and bad when it comes to settling scores. It’s good because no one ever has to die over some side-eye, but bad because we’re now in a historical time of intense psychological dueling where a “fine” actually is used to have a friend, colleague, or waiter wonder endlessly if you’re mad at them – and then hopefully come to the realization themselves that you are, and make up for it with an apology, an HJ or both.
We all know sort of agree passive aggressiveness is wrong, but it feels so right. Keyboard crack. A home-row-bruising email that starts with “Hope you had a nice weekend too!” but ends with “ASAP” in all caps. A one-word text that’s caboosed with a period. Damnit, that’s nice. But we can do better.
Here are some passive aggressive options better than the note you left in the company fridge to protect your afternoon snack.
Give someone 1.5 “ha’s” instead of 2 when text laughing
Has someone ever texted you something you thought was funny but not that funny? And then you purposely gave them a hahah response instead of a hahaha? I do that shit all the time. It’s usually a hah actually. You don’t even get two ha’s from me unless you really bring it. There needs to be standards for text laughing. Have some respect for yourself. It feels really good to hit someone with the hah when they think they’re going to get an LOL.
Here’s a quick breakdown:
Everything else just scales from there. I generally include the number of ha’s I think is appropriate, unless the joke is an immediate betch slap to the funny bone, then the LOL or I Die comes out.
Fart on someone at the gym – especially if you’re a lady
Emphasis on the aggressive in passive aggressive in this case, but sometimes you need to blow off a little extra steam. Now, don’t fart on the nice, quiet guy in the corner doing sit-ups for the first time since his Vegas bro trip last March Madness. Fart on the tanned, orange couple by the squat rack only doing sets of sexual PDAs in the mirror or the super busy business bro who just asked you how many sets you have left on the bench press even though there are only 10 other people and 46 open machines in the gym. “Oh, I’m sorry Mr. President. I didn’t realize you had to jump on Air Force One in two minutes for the rescue dog saving convention. I have no sets left. After, you.” None of those assholes are invited to my Fit Family’s Christmas. They need to be stopped. They deserve to be farted on. Maybe they’ll try to go to their mental happy place to avoid the smell of your free radicals and think about their actions.
Side note: My friend used to have a wish as one of his three genie wishes that every time a girl farted, a puff of green smoke would come out so we could really see who was silent but deadly. I love this. Everyone needs to have their three genie wishes holstered. Here are mine:
- See above
- Get it on with Xtina to Genie in a Bottle
- Have everyone who says they’re really anal when correcting your PowerPoint formatting…[the rest of this is between me and the genie 😉 NSFW.]
Walk like a maniac in front of someone texting and then get mad at them
Texters are the devil. Society has deemed texting and doing anything else at the same time wrong. Thus, if you feel that passive aggressive demon creeping into your loins and you want to advance society’s crusade against thumb friendship, simply walk in the path of someone typing away, bump into them and pretend their ignorance caused your collision. For added effect, toss some blonde roast into the air or pretend to pull a hamstring. They’ll automatically think they’re to blame, apologize and promise themselves to stop being so fucking millennial in 2016.
Like a poorly engaged with Instagram post from 12+ months ago
Say you’re mad at Katie. Katie’s being selfish. Go to Katie’s Instagram profile and find the photo from the past year that she got the lowest amount of likes on and give it a double tap. Chances are this photo will have seven or so likes and be something boring like a loaf of bread from her hometown bakery. “So great to be home and cozy at Barry’s Breads! Sourdough is my favorite with a little salted butter. #Nom” Katie will have forgotten about this social abomination by now, but at the time, she couldn’t believe it didn’t get double digit likes. “No one cares about where I come from?” “No one from high school even liked it. Did I not have as many friends as I thought? Everyone loves bread.”
Now, wound healed, Kate is going see your like notification, get excited to see which photo it’s on and then, boom, sick burn! It’s still not in double digits bitch!
Here’s the one that would rattle my cage. Look on the face sums it up. One like.
Pick a movie with lots of sex in it and watch with your parents
This one’s pretty specific, but if you’re frustrated with your parents and they ask you to select a movie for the family to watch, “accidentally” pick one with lots of awkward boinking. Trainwreck is perfect. It opens with a sex scene and has another amazing performance from WWE-star John Cena later on that will make all the turtles on all the beaches of Earth flap their fins in awkward turtle solidarity. You thought it was cool to bring up my “lost drinking” college year again Mom?! You think I need to put more than 2% into my 401K, eh?! Take that. Have some Cena. “I’m gonna give you the protein you need to survive.” I die.
If you’re a passive aggression pro, you may need to step it up a few notches and announce you’re pregnant two weeks into a new job (solid because no one can get mad at the miracle of life and when you post a million baby photos even though you know people are annoyed by a million baby photos it’s like passive aggressiveness itself had a little shade-throwing baby), but hopefully this is a nice jumping off point. New year, new you.