I feel a bit like a cad, because I manipulate conversation rather than explicitly name boundaries. One of my strongest conversational strategies is to listen (over the phone works best, but in person too) with no expression of interest. I make clear that I'm listening, but let the topic absolutely die. My interlocutor will eventually falter and wrap up the call, or pause long enough that I can change the topic.
Yeah, this is basically my approach too, a lot of the time....I don't think it's "caddish," altho sometimes people call it passive-aggressive. Maybe it can be thought of as putting into practice a lot of the "use your words" ideas -- in my family, if I try to bring stuff into the open or call people on behaviour, no matter how politely or compassionately, there's an explosion of "How COULD you say that" and "that is so UNFAIR" and then it turns into a big How Mean You Are drama fest, which is worse for me than the original bad behaviour. But trying to control the bad behaviour covertly rather than overtly, or at least limit its effects on me, can work better. Letting topics die, showing up to make a token appearance, keeping my own end of the conversation on a brisk and breezy and somewhat superficial level, and so on. One relative sent me a giant inappropriate email about what she saw as another relative's abuse of painkillers, and wanted me to say something without revealing that the urging came from her, &c &c, and I just totally ignored it. I'm sure there were many other family emails exchanged about what a terrible person I was and how I Just Didn't Care and was a self-centered bitch and so on, but at least I didn't get dragged into the emotional drama.
In my experience seven or maybe eight times out of ten the other person is depending on a response -- even just nonverbal feedback. A lot of attempted bomb-lobbing will fizzle out if it makes no discernible impact. -- This works for me, because I'm a conciliatory-type person and really hate conflict, and I'm not sure it would work for someone who wants to "stay and fight and win". It's more like "The only way to win is not to play," but without cutting them off.
Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling
Yeah, this is basically my approach too, a lot of the time....I don't think it's "caddish," altho sometimes people call it passive-aggressive. Maybe it can be thought of as putting into practice a lot of the "use your words" ideas -- in my family, if I try to bring stuff into the open or call people on behaviour, no matter how politely or compassionately, there's an explosion of "How COULD you say that" and "that is so UNFAIR" and then it turns into a big How Mean You Are drama fest, which is worse for me than the original bad behaviour. But trying to control the bad behaviour covertly rather than overtly, or at least limit its effects on me, can work better. Letting topics die, showing up to make a token appearance, keeping my own end of the conversation on a brisk and breezy and somewhat superficial level, and so on. One relative sent me a giant inappropriate email about what she saw as another relative's abuse of painkillers, and wanted me to say something without revealing that the urging came from her, &c &c, and I just totally ignored it. I'm sure there were many other family emails exchanged about what a terrible person I was and how I Just Didn't Care and was a self-centered bitch and so on, but at least I didn't get dragged into the emotional drama.
In my experience seven or maybe eight times out of ten the other person is depending on a response -- even just nonverbal feedback. A lot of attempted bomb-lobbing will fizzle out if it makes no discernible impact. -- This works for me, because I'm a conciliatory-type person and really hate conflict, and I'm not sure it would work for someone who wants to "stay and fight and win". It's more like "The only way to win is not to play," but without cutting them off.