Today I learned that some of my behavior and things that I said on several occasions months ago led others to feel uncomfortable, perhaps threatened, and generally disgruntled with what they perceived as my intentions.

This is troubling to me, for several reasons: 1. the things that I said were largely misconstrued 2. they were also passed along to third parties, inaccurately because of the misunderstandings and 3. I didn't find out about them until now. So my perception now is that people have been sitting on these misconceptions of me for 8 months in one case and 4 months in another.

I'm having trouble processing all of this without getting majorly upset - and I'm trying to figure out why. Maybe it's the fact that so much assumption, misconception, and non-confrontation was what led to my termination from my previous job, and I really wish that everyone (including myself) would just communicate more, and less defensively at that. Like... is it me, and the way that I talk to people, or talk in general, that renders people reluctant to confront me? Because I'm starting to think that's the case, and that I need to really stop and think about how I need to change the way I approach things. At the same time though, I'm unwilling to compromise my convictions - sometimes I need to speak up, and I think that startles people and puts them on the defensive... but they don't actually want to express that, so they don't say anything about it to me and just let it simmer in their minds until it happens again.

I can understand passive aggression - most people like to avoid conflicts. Yet when an interaction with someone leaves you annoyed, perturbed, or even just plain angry, unless you've actually hashed it out, maybe something is missing that would help remedy it. If I had been confronted at either of these situations, I would have been able to explain, apologize, and work out the misunderstanding right away. Instead, I'm left looking back and trying to remember exactly what happened, hesitant to dig it all up again with the respective parties but also really wanting to explain myself. I'm really at a loss as to what to do - I feel like this is just a symptom of life.

You know what this is like? Shakespeare. Characters in Shakespeare rarely dig deep enough to really understand situations before acting on their perceptions - and on the other side they also rarely aggressively explain their situations to others. And what ends up happening?

Most times people die.