這些跡象表明你遇到了一個又消極又愛攻擊的人
Every war, bar brawl or playground smack-down ever fought has resulted from our habit of lashing out first and talking it through only later. But if aggression has one virtue, it’s that it’s unambiguous. It’s hard to misunderstand the meaning of a missile launch or a punch in the nose.
每場戰爭、每次的酒吧毆鬥或操場上的毆打都是由於我們先猛烈抨擊、然後再討論的習慣造成的。但如果攻擊有優勢，那就是特點鮮明。人們很難誤解導彈發射或一拳打到鼻子上代表着的意思。But passive-aggression? That’s a whole other thing. Passive-aggression is there but it’s not, you see it and you don’t. It’s aggression as steam — hard to frame, impossible grasp. You see it in the competitive colleague who would never confront you directly but accidentally leaves your name off an email about an important meeting. It’s the spouse who’s usually punctual but takes forever to get out of the house when it’s your turn to choose the movie. Sometimes there’s an innocent explanation, but often there’s not — and the passive-aggressors themselves might not even know which is which.
但又被動又愛攻擊人？那就是另一回事了。又被動又愛攻擊就在那裏，但也不在那裏，你看得見也看不見。這種攻擊就像蒸汽一樣——難以架構、無法掌握。你在好競爭的同事身上看到過這一點，她/他從未正面懟過你，但偶爾會在一封有關重要會議的郵件上劃掉你的名字。這也體現在配偶身上，她/他平時都很準時，但輪到你選擇看什麼電影時，他們/她們卻要花很長的時間纔會離開家，有時候他們能給出無辜的辯解，但通常都是沒有理由的——又被動又愛攻擊的人可能自己都搞不清楚。
Leaving things undone.
事情不做完
Passive-aggressors are champions of the almost complete job: the room that’s painted except for the moulding; the laundry that’s washed but doesn’t get folded; the dishwasher that’s loaded except for the utensils, because really, who needs clean utensils when we can always spear our food with sharpened sticks or the fondue forks we’ve had in the back of the closet since 1997! (Not that I’ve ever experienced this at home.) It’s a nifty strategy, signalling resentment at having to do the job and leaving just little enough undone that you’d feel picky criticising it and will ultimately decide just to do it yourself for, like, the twelve billionth time. (Not that I’ve ever experienced that either.)
又被動又愛攻擊的人是工作快要完成的冠軍：房間已經刷完漆，就差裝飾線條了；衣服洗好了，但還沒疊；洗碗機裝滿了，但就是沒有放餐具，因爲自1997年，當我們可以用衣櫃後鋒利的棍棒或火鍋叉叉食物以來，誰還會用餐具啊！（但我在家可沒這麼幹過。）這是個極好的策略，既表達出自己對這份不得不做的任務的不滿，又剩下一點不做，這樣你就並不會挑剔她/他不做完，最終總是決定自己完成剩下的部分。（我也沒這麼幹過。）Running late.
遲到If you’re a passive-aggressor you live in an Einsteinian universe of eternally elastic time, where a few minutes can turn into a few hours. Actually, all of us live there — which is why we have watches. To passive-aggressors, a watch is a bother. If they don’t want to go to a dinner party but feel obligated to be there? No worries. They’ll just accept the invitation and then — oopsies! — only vaguely remember the time it starts so they don’t show up till the middle of the soup course.
如果你是又被動又愛攻擊的人，那你就生活在愛因斯坦的永恆彈性時間宇宙裏，在這一宇宙中，幾分鐘能變成幾小時。事實上，我們所有人都生活在這個宇宙裏——所以我們纔會有手錶。對於又被動又愛攻擊的人而言，手錶就是個兄弟。但如果他們不想參加晚宴但又出於義務感而不得不去？別擔心。他們會接受邀請，然後——oopsies——只模糊的記得晚宴開始的時間，所以直到上湯了他們纔會出現。
