Against "Smoothing Things Over"

Parsing out some thoughts on why we tend to give disagreeable people so much power.

A couple months ago, I was visiting family in Utah. I stood on the hill overlooking my parent’s backyard, talking with a loved one who I haven’t seen in a while. Within thirty seconds, this loved one demanded to know if I’d been going to church or not.

No matter how often this happens to me (which is actually kind of often), I’m never prepared to respond. Silly me for thinking people would find me interesting for any other reason than my church status? I stumbled through a response, telling this loved one that no, I still wasn’t going to church, and yes, I was still happier on the outside.

“It’s not eternal happiness,” this person said, leaving me stumped once more.

I wasn’t stumped because this person had stone-cold logic. I was stumped because I exist in a different reality than they do. The gulf between our mental frameworks felt deeper than ever. There are plenty of ways I could have responded, and every single one would have caused this person to double down in church doctrine, to “prove” that I’ve been led astray, to calm their own heightened sense of anxiety at my insistence that life goes on outside of religion.

Luckily, someone interrupted our conversation, and we started talking about gardening. I left as soon as it felt socially acceptable.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this comment I got a few months ago on my post “The ‘Not My Experience’ Conundrum.” In that post, I talked about how often concerns about the Mormon church are met with members’ thought-terminating cliche of “Well, that’s not my experience.” The comment said:

The ability and maturity needed to sit with the internal dissonance of "this is good for me and it was bad for them" is [tragically] not something taught in the church. In fact, I think it's the opposite. The "one true church" narrative bleeds into "one true experience of that church." It leaves those of us who have stepped away to have to hold "this was bad for me but it's good for them" if we want to keep relationships with people who are still in. Unfortunately we have to hold that while also witnessing all the greater harm the organization as a whole has caused. That is extremely difficult.

The bolded part of this comment has haunted me.

This person nailed something that’s been on my mind for a while, as I’ve noticed that the inverse is almost never true. The loved one on the hill, for instance, does not hold the idea that the church is good for them but it’s bad for me. They hold the idea that the church is good for everyone, and that I’m sinning and lost by not participating. I have to hold a certain respect for their beliefs, while they can actively denounce mine (while rarely asking what my beliefs actually are).

On a broader scale, I’ve been wondering why it’s “the polite” thing to do, societally, to accept people’s uncouth behavior. I have a friend who is a teacher, and they had the worst year of their teaching life so far because of a member on their team. This team member also drove everybody else insane. They were always interrupting planning sessions to ask questions that insinuated nobody else knew what they were doing. They constantly insulted others with their passive aggressive behavior. They slowed every planning session to a stop, so that everyone left frustrated and having accomplished nothing, causing lesson planning to bleed even more into their personal time than usual.

And still, the whole team—despite each member knowing the others also disliked this one team member—stayed quiet in meetings. Because if they argued, they’d be starting “a thing.”

Why is this so often the case? Why, in my example, am I not “allowed” to argue with the loved one who actively questioned my character? Why am I the one holding this person’s feelings and beliefs in consideration when it’s obvious they don’t do the same for me?

I don’t know why it’s seen as more disagreeable to disagree with a disagreeable person. I don’t know why we accept this made-up hierarchy of power. But going forward, I’d like to stand up for myself more, and for the people around me.

When I was younger, high school age, I was known for my sarcasm. It was a defense mechanism, some way of acting as if I wasn’t affected by anyone around me. I was sassy and sometimes rude and not afraid to speak my mind. When I went on my Mormon mission in Houston, Texas, I was surprised to see all the other missionaries—individual humans with individual personalities—turn into robotic versions of themselves. They all talked the same, acted the same, dressed the same, finding safety in homogeny. I was resolved to maintain my personality, based on the idea that surely, God would have called me to this place for a specific reason. Perhaps my personality was just what the people of Houston needed to see the Mormon church as a super cool place to be.

Not long into my mission, a male missionary walked up to me holding an Ensign, a monthly Mormon publication. He pointed at one of the subheadings on the front page, which read: Sarcasm is part of what the Apostle Paul called “corrupt communication.” This missionary looked at me and said, “I think you need to read this.”

While I didn’t fully give up my personality while serving my mission (and…never read that article), I did learn to be more palatable. I stopped calling people out as much, stopped voicing my opinion when I deemed it unnecessary, stopped teasing people as a way of “bonding.” I matured, in other words.

But sometimes, even now, more than a decade later, I wish I could adopt some of the bravery—however misguided—younger me inhabited. What would she have said to the loved one who challenged me about my life outside of church? What would she have said in meetings with the difficult teacher? I don’t think she’d handle it well, necessarily, but perhaps she would start a conversation that gets us thinking about why these people feel allowed to make things awkward, uncomfortable, uneasy.

Going forward, I think the answer lies somewhere in between. Silence can be a powerful tool. Maybe, instead of tripping over my words trying to defend myself, I could let the silence hang after my loved one said something hurtful. I could ask them to repeat themselves. I could hold up a mirror so they pay better attention to the way their words sound.

I could literally copy Andy Samberg’s character in Hot Rod, where he pretends not to hear someone’s criticism and then admits, “I’m just kidding. I can hear you. It was just really mean.”

I want to assuage the responsibility I feel to “smooth things over.” Or, like the comment I mentioned said, I want to assuage the responsibility I feel to maintain relationships with people who see me as a number, a lost lamb, a sinner. If someone is being weird or rude, I don’t need to make it into a joke or sit there smiling and nodding. I don’t need to protect them. As a Mormon girl, I’ve been taught all my life that my responsibility is toward others: to serve them, to care for them, to honor them. My life’s purpose was to be a caretaker.

Since it feels written into my DNA, I’m sure I’ll continue taking care of people. But overall, I think a refocus is needed, in general. Who are we really taking care of by smoothing things over? The people who say and do rude or weird or damaging things with no consequence? Or the people they affect?

I was talking with my mom on the phone the other day, and she brought up a memory I’d totally forgotten. I guess we were at some sort of party in the window of time between when I got married and when I was about to head across the country for grad school. Maybe grad school was just an idea at the time, or maybe I’d already been accepted. I don’t remember. But I do remember talking to an old friend from my church congregation at said party.

She asked about my plans, and I told her about grad school. This old friend then said, “Oh, you won’t go to grad school” in a facetious tone. “You’ll be too busy at home, taking care of all the babies.”

Apparently, my mom looked her in the eyes and said, “No, she won’t. She’ll be going to grad school.”

It was funny because on the phone, my mom then said at the time she was worried this old friend would be mad at her. But it was the friend who said a weird thing! A presumptuous thing! A thing wrapped in cultural expectation and projection that she might have regretted right away! I appreciate my mom pointedly telling her that she was incorrect, protecting her daughter in such an admirable way. After all, my mom was raised in the same culture. She could have smiled and nodded, and let the dust settle while we changed the subject politely.

This situation might not have changed the old friend’s mind. She might not even remember it, just like I didn’t really remember it. There have been so many comments like this that at this point, they tend to blend together.

But I always remember the way these comments make me feel. Less than. Frustrated. Angry. Mostly, mad at myself for not speaking up. But moments like this party with my mom show me a way forward, reminding me just how powerful disruption can be.

Very much still figuring this out,

Abi