Of Wrath and Warmth

I have been wondering why the worst fights or arguments that we have are with the ones that are closest to us. How easily the people, we otherwise protect, become safe targets of passing by aggression. More often that not these are temporary stupid fights which sort themselves off on their own in some time. For the time when this train is derailed though, you are caught in the two states, one where you want to be aggressive and the other where you keep asking yourself whether you really want to be in this argument.

I read an article the other day about aggression, which said that there are two types of them, direct and indirect. Direct aggression is when you are expressive and direct in showing your displeasure. Indirect aggression is when you avoid the person and use the cold shoulder to indicate that something is wrong. The latter is generally seen in a group where there are many people and you wouldn't want to upset the whole setup.

We only express direct aggression to people very close to us, the easy targets, the people who we will rather protect. So the question that was bugging me was why do we do it? Why do we keep contradicting ourselves by these little derailment episodes. 

The first reason I thought was that we feel safe around them. Safe to express ourselves. Safe from judgments. So when your emotions had a bat-crap crazy day, you just blurt it all out without any alterations of anything.

How stupid this make sound, you actually want to stay there and argue rather than walking away. Walking away is not ideal. Walking away is never ideal. You don't want to cold shoulder them. Even though these are negative episodes, these do help in some manner or the other (maybe).

The honesty also kicks in, you don't need any masks to behave around them. You are pretty honest and that also doesn't help in stopping yourself to save the train from derailment. 

Maybe they are the people you go to when you feel down about everything around yourself. More often than not, these results in the conversation going south. But then again, maybe you wanted to do it only with them.

Lastly,  I think these little fights don't really mean much because you know at the end of them, you will swing back to the same comfort level no matter what.

All those episodes of wrath that happen between Brother-Sisters, Mummy-Daddys, "best friends" - maybe they are only because of the warmth they share at the end of the day.