Why I Choose To Be Confrontational

Confrontation tends to have a negative connotation and is stigmatised in almost all social circles. I experience this myself on a daily basis both online and offline. I continue to behave as I do because of my own principles. In my own way, I look people in the eye because I care. I care both about the message and the person receiving it. This can understandably be a confusing statement for most but allow me to explain myself since there has been a lot of fuss about my stance and it might be perhaps my fault—taking some things for granted.
 

Direct approach allots me time to concentrate to what matters. I can easily deduce people's motives and histories from aspects of their personality, appearance and behavior by observing the way they choose to interact with their environment. This stance might suggest a negative undertone that might even signify anger or frustration. At least to me this is never the case. Confrontation is merely a behavioural device in order to access a situation while at the same time evaluating the person. We are designed to accept the positive much easier than the negative and criticism can make many feel unease. What I learned from experience though is that this method can be used as a distiller machine to separate those who matter in life vs those who don’t—or better—separating the wheat from the chaff.

It is important to note here than being contentious or being blunt are often smudged together. I consider myself more of a blunt individual but people often mistake my stance as hostile or even downright rude. This is rather disappointing since it demonstrates how political correctness and standardized social etiquette has sculpted a society around us that functions on superficiality, shallowness and overgeneralizations. This is another reason why a showdown becomes vital for accessing those around me.
 

Getting around social norms can be quite challenging since the established a-la-cart behaviour doesn’t leave much room for experimentation. First impressions matter and so it is preferred to be “safe than sorry”. Admittedly, we all open up when our relationships grow in time, but by then it is too late. We often come to realise that we don’t really know the other person as well as we thought we did.

I can’t count the times acquaintances expressed their disappointment about how surprised they were to discover after two or three years, the truth about their partner or their employee. This is perhaps the biggest advantage of an uncomfortably honest confrontation. Considering my experiences so far it saved me precious years from life and unimaginable monetary losses. The reasoning is quite simple. Initially people tend to hold a shield to cover up their masked personality. Most are easily agitated when you scratch the surface. Being blunt shakes ones superficial persona, often catching them by surprise. In time it becomes more evident who holds a solid character and who doesn’t. If one manages to expose the mask up-front, the task for evaluating one’s character becomes far easier. On the other hand, keeping appearances and waiting for time and random events to reveal one’s true nature can cost energy, time and money. In essence, compared to most people around me, I save years from my life whether those are pointless friendships, intimate partners of business endeavours. The cost? Random up-tight nobodies that are too focused on how other people see them instead of how they reglect to themselves. In practise a win-win situation.

Nonetheless, as most of you might have realised after spending a couple of decades on this planet, the blunt and/or confrontational scene doesn’t look very promising for the weak-hearted. “Test-driving” humans is not something many people dare to delve into. Why not though? Every single product we enjoy for long periods of time is being put under strenuous tests. From cars to hardware equipment, computers, cellphones and computer networks; they all need to be tested against unforeseen and continuous challenges if they are to be released in the market. We demand our items to be trustworthy and not to let us down when something unforeseen comes up. Sadly, very few humans go through similar testing and yet millions are released in the market every year. For me, being confrontational is my own unique version for screening humans. And yes, as you have figured out already, not many make it through my blunt mesh.
 

Contentiousness also tends to sharpen on a great extent my bullshit detector. In time, it creates a special set of goggles that enables special detection for sweet talkers, manipulators and people who keep a standardised lingo to sell either themselves or their ideas. For the sake of making an example, let’s take a hot-tier woman who is praised daily. These women have developed a rather sensitive bullshit detector which enables them to distinguish between genuine and shallow complements. Evidently, exposure to stimuli sharpens perception. Of course they might appear “bitchy” or “ill-mannered” for the untrained eye but they only do so because they can’t afford to pay attention to every single person that hits on them. Being blunt works much the same. There are just way too many “unscreened” people released in the social market—from business to social networks. Distilling those who matter becomes of utmost importance to ensure one’s livelihood.

Personally, I am willing to sacrifice quick rewards and even social image for the sake of integrity and honesty. I learned that it pays out massively in the long run when it comes to both financial and personal rewards. I have very few personal and professional acquaintances but all of them have made it through my screening before I made any commitment with them. I was rarely let down since they were too able to see past my behaviour and through my real intentions through my actions. My actions always reflect my words. That is my personal insurance for anyone that gets to stick around.
 

Professionally, I know the tricks of the game. I know about deception and manipulation in order to keep appearances but I don’t do it just to pitch sales. In my line of business (design, marketing & advertising) it is impossible not to deceive the public. Nonetheless, I choose to reveal mind tricks to my customers because I enjoy the beauty of honesty and sincerity —at least with those that pay me to do it. It also makes things a bit more challenging. With every chance I get I also try to explain how advertising is essentialy an elaborate deceptive scheme.

At the end of the day, being confrontational, rewards me with much more rather than choosing to follow a passive social etiquette. I don’t remember the last time I lied, even small white lies. Last job I got, I told the boss that the company looked like a fucking circus and that I could fix some of the issues. He was surprised for a few seconds but then he immediately offered me the position. In my first resume I described all my fuckups and how I would probably continue doing mistakes and fixing them at my new job. I still believe I got my first job in a major New York company just by being brutally honest and not because of my naked resume.

I am old enough today to understand some harsh truths about how social contacts work. For example, everyone wants honesty but when you are honest with them, you are more likely to be perceived as an asshole. This is the sad truth that very few admit. This is after all why most people choose to be sweet-talkers rather than being blunt. The vast majority of people despise me for the way I talk but when they have a problem, seeking a sincere opinion, they always manage to ring me up, gladly accepting my harsh criticism. That for me is much more rewarding than keeping a superficial day-to-day-coffee-shop-level of friendship. This also makes me realise how messed up most people’s lives are, hiding behind a mask waiting for things to change—by willingly trying to be the same as everybody else. I can guarantee you that I have no real friends (by choice) but rather selected acquaintances. Even so, I treat the few that stick around better than most people treat what they call “best friends”. This is why I still answer my phone, giving advice to those who ask for it—even if I know I will probably hear from that person in a year or so when another big issue comes up. People come and go. Most never really afford to change but rather only become more of who they already are.

Confrontation has got a bad name due to the structure of our society. The masses wanted to keep a code of behaviour that could be standardised for better social cohesion thus they created authorities to enforce it. This is how and why most behaviours were eventually labeled “sinful” or “inappropriate” even if there is nothing inherently "bad" with them. The tradition still continues today in our judiciary system with not a single shred of scientific evidence to back the claims that confrontation, rudeness or even swearing can harm individuals one way or another. We are brought up in communities where some modes of behaviour gain more gravity than others and so we teach our children to perceive some modes as “bad” and some others as “good”. This is more or less how the epidemic of “I am offended” came to flourish with people getting "traumatised" under the most normative situations. We suddenly became too sensitive for no apparent reason other than our own self-entitlement. The result? Politicians, salesmen or even friends maintain a posh, eloquent-skin-deep lingo that perpetually promotes misunderstandings and manipulation. We like to hide our head in the sand pretending that everything is OK. We become in a way a form of “behavioural statists” when it comes to business, sales, money, friendships. “It’s just how things are man”. Bow or perish.
 

You might have also noticed that along my arguments I use some sharp epithets that might even be perceived as swearing for the sensitive folk—the vast majority of people. I pay little attention to this complaint since I consider all forms of language as a musical repertoire—ready to be celebrated when one has the chance rather than confined into conventional molds. Every single word has its place in a conversation, even swearing. Some studies demonstrate that swearing can in fact have positive outcomes in human relationships. For example one study showed that people who swear have better vocabularies. Researchers like Timothy Jay and Kristin Janschewitz outlined many benefits of swearing while at the same time dismantiling many of the common myths that add to the negative aspect of swearing. Remember, most things that we think we know to be “good” or “bad” are nothing more than propagated myths to ensure social cohesion. Question everything, especially those which we perceive as de-facto truths.

Most things around us fail because we refrain from being blunt. Instead of criticizing something and clearly putting out there how we see it, we tend to use savoir vivre and carefully crafted language. We do so in order to pass the message but also retain our persona. We believe that this works because the other person responds with much the same hypocrisy. Unfortunately, if politics taught us anything, is that this kind of rhetorics deteriorate the situation by sweeping the real problem under the rag. Constructive criticism and keeping appearances don’t go together.

If you have seen me being critical towards Steemit or being confrontational with some of its members, be assured that I do what I do because I care, aiming for its improvement. I prefer my actions to speak rather than my words. 9 out of 10 startups end up in failure within 5 years. While I can see the aspiration towards Steemit in becoming the next Facebook, we need to remind ourselves that it has more chance following a hi5 path, or even not even making it to that level. This is how the markets are. Like I said before positive thinking is overrated and can actually damage one’s goal—blinding towards the real issues that usually stare us in the eye. This is why I have been criticizing all the senseless shilling about “dreams of grandeur” that only hurt Steemit's potential. If anyone doubts my positive aspirations for the platform then check the projects I have already been involved in so far or the objective suggestion posts that I made. Through my encounters in here I made plenty of “enemies” but I also managed to meet a handful few that made the endeavour worthwhile. I hope this post clears the air in regards to why I do what I do because let’s face it—not many dare to go balls deep in a platform where keeping appearances with the whales,is literally, all the money. If this is not caring beyond monetary rewards, I don't know what is.