Nobody likes confrontation. I know I don’t. Tackling a problem, admitting you’re wrong, apologizing or asking if someone else has a problem often fills me with dread, or at least a strong sense of anxiety. But here’s the thing: human beings are often clueless about what I think of as the emotional supply chain. They act in accordance with unconscious feelings and desires they may have no idea are being expressed but which are bleedingly obvious to the other party. They may do so out of insecurity, out of a need to be defensive, or because they are narcissistic and sociopathic (sadly, I know far too many people who exhibit such behavior. They abound in literary circles, probably because the stakes are so low. They abound in many other more moneyed professional circles, of course but ruthlessness attached to hundreds of millions of dollars at least makes some sort of cockeyed sense.)

This week a bunch of different things happened to me or people close to me that really illustrate why confrontation avoidance is toxic. A friendship reached an endpoint - not necessarily the ultimate end, for I remain an optimist - because one party called bullshit in a too-vociferous manner and the other refused to listen and has a lot of growing up to do. That description deletes a lot of nuance and some collateral damage but it boils down to this: one sensed there was a problem and sought to resolve it directly, and the other party did not want to face up to the problem.

In another instance, I wasn’t proud of the way I behaved this week towards someone whom I don’t particularly care for. The reasons for my feelings are complicated (owing much to this very issue of behaving in a passive-aggressive manner, in fact) but this person did say hello, and after shaking my hand I hurried away, waving my cell phone as a lame explanation (it was, in fact, true, but I could have taken a minute or two to talk instead of rushing off to complete a dialed call.) And so I sent a message of apology and a note to catch up the following day. I haven’t heard a peep from the other person, which is interesting, but not unexpected. I hope some dialogue will ensue, and if not now, perhaps in the future.

Social media and the Internet, of course, exacerbates these interpersonal problems. Exhibit A: being unfollowed on Twitter. Just today I received a direct message from a friend who asked why a mutual acquaintance had unfollowed her. Did this friend have an issue with her? I said no, to the best of my knowledge, but why not ask the friend directly? She didn’t feel like it because she didn’t want to deal. Which yes, I get, because confrontation sucks, as it’s an emotional risk. But letting things fester and linger is worse, since the problem isn’t solved and the conflict is further exacerbated.

But then there are times when a direct confrontation can lead to a thoughtful exchange. I was going through my RSS feed and stumbled upon a writeup of the panel I moderated on Tuesday which deemed it as “something that did not work at all.” Now, I might have been annoyed by it for a long time if the very writer of that piece walked by and waved hello. So immediately I said, “so, I have to ask you about your post” and explained what I was trying to do and where I felt he missed the point. He countered with further examples and I conceded his points were fair, offering an example as to how the panel balance might have been improved. It was, at least to my mind, a very friendly, helpful discussion, one that might never have occurred if not for serendipity. But also because I made sure to be direct. This isn’t personal, even if that ping of frantic doubt creeps in all the same.

We’re human, we’re self-absorbed, we spend too much time in our own heads to venture outside into others’. Empathy is a bitch. Respect is a word I almost never hear used anymore. Anger is a big ball of fire that can be scary. But here’s the thing: if you aren’t direct, you lose out on so much: honest conversation, being true to who you are, being understanding of why others think and act they way they do. Certainly there are consequences of being direct, and not all of them are good. But the consequences of *not* being direct are far, far worse.