How do you deal with toxic people? What helps you handle their negativity, even if you only see them sometimes?
Toxic people are everywhere around us; we just do not interact with each one. For my luck, I meet them rarely, but when it happens, I’m trying to minimize my interaction and involvement in the discussion or dialogue. The more you minimize it, the less nerves and positive energy they will take from you.
The most important thing is to predetect or detect “toxicity” as fast as possible.
For example, in sports hall im training, we have an ultra-toxic hall caretaker.
The first times I met him, I reacted aggressively, trying to give a powerful response. But I noted that those interactions were ruining my daily mood. I minimized our contact to “Hi-&-Bye” level and that worked. Dude just started to annoying other people around him, still hunting for fresh victims.
So my advice is to show them from the start that you don’t care and that you couldn’t be an easy victim for them.
I’m trying to reduce contact with these kinds of people. Thank you for your tips! I’ll consider them
This is a real pain point for most people, but it’s hard to think of any solutions that could be helpful here. I think the main problem is that toxicity can be subjective.
However, maybe technology can solve this at some point in the distant future. For example, there could be a way to technologically block toxic people in real life, so they can’t interact with you, similar to how you can block users online.
However, this doesn’t seem like something that could be solved in the near future.
That said, there are some ways to deal with this pain point, such as using strategies that @NYegor suggested from their experience.