You haven’t seen your friend for a couple of years due to the pandemic. So you both decide to meet for lunch. You are both excited to see one another. After 5 minutes of smiling and laughter, a cell phone rings and your lunch date picks it up. At first, you don’t mind it. You think it might be an important business call which they have to take. But after several minutes have passed, you are feeling uncomfortable. So you take out your own phone and look at text messages. As the time passes you may even text various people. As more time passes you are feeling downright annoyed. As more seconds pass you are finding yourself getting angrier and angrier.
As you sit there steaming, you wonder what to do.
a. Should you signal that you are leaving?
b. Should you just get up and leave?
c. Should you loudly interrupt, waving and saying “I’m here”?
d. Should you loudly say” Let’s do this another time?”
e Should you go and get the waiter and start ordering your meal as you ignore your ‘”friend”?
f. Should you loudly tell them they are being rude and disrespectful, while they are still on the phone?
Feel free to do any of the above.
When your friend finally gets off the phone and sees you are visibly annoyed and apologies and explains who was on the other line, do you
a. readily forgive them?
b. tell them that it was pretty rude of them?
c. sulk the entire time you are together and give them the cold shoulder
d. tell them to turn off their phone for the rest of the meal and not take any more calls?
When someone takes a call in your presence unless it is a dire emergency, they are telling you a lot about yourself and your relationship or friendship. In essence, they are telling you that you are not that important. They are saying that you really don’t matter. Iy is the ultimate sign of disrespect.
I am a firm believer in speaking up and saying what is on your mind. I believe in being open and direct and not letting anger or upset fester inside of you. If this bothers you- speak up. Don’t worry about hurting their feelings or their getting upset. That is exactly what they did to you. The reality s that they have hurt you so don’t compound the hurt and hurt yourself by not speaking up for yourself.
In speaking up to them, it will give them a reality check of how their actions negatively impacted you. It may shame them into not doing it again. In essence, you are training them on how to treat you as you set boundaries for your relationship.
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Toxic People Blog 