A2D

Summer is the time for class reunions and other events involving getting together with large numbers of people you might not see often. You may have been close at one time but grew apart over the years. Or you might be part of the same extended family but never quite saw eye-to-eye. Judging from the vast amount of literature - books, magazines, websites - on managing social or family-related holiday stress, a lot of people feel trepidation over these gatherings. Much of the stress seems to come from ongoing disagreements over lifestyle, politics, religion and other personal choices.

Although I haven't experienced the intense ongoing conflict that friends have described to me, I've been through a fair number of incidents where I felt uncomfortable and unsure how to respond. During one large event, one person arrived so amped up by a political cause she'd joined that she forced the topic into every conversation, loudly and aggressively. I had the sense that she was (perhaps subconsciously) looking for an argument, and I didn't feel like obliging her. Nor did I want her to leave the event with the impression that everyone felt the same way, which was what would happen if no one spoke up. At a smaller gathering, about 10 of us were sitting around the table, and someone made a statement about a certain group of people in a manner that implied we all agreed.

Both times I was stuck for words. It wasn't until my son, age 12 at the time, confessed to me that he'd had an argument with a cousin over religious beliefs that I decided to come up with better ways to deal with disagreement than either fighting or staying silent. After a lot of experimenting, I've noticed that one simple sentence does the trick most of the time: "We'll have to agree to disagree." I call it A2D.

A2D works because it lets the person pushing the envelope know that you don't agree but that you're not willing to duke it out. Of course, if you enjoy loud debates and stirring things up, it's not an issue. But if you'd rather spend precious time with friends or relatives enjoying their company, it's your right to refuse to argue. It's also your right to be treated respectfully. A2D is the most effective one-liner I've found that gets this message across.

Before heading out to another "do," I coached my son on various ways to respond to aggressive or hostile exchanges arising from differences of opinion. We rehearsed A2D and other scenarios. He felt more confident after that.

People who live outside the lines are especially susceptible to feeling like outsiders within their own family or school. Using A2D eliminates some of the stress engendered by feeling as though you have to defend who you are.

The Guilty Bystander

When I was growing up back in the 70s, harassment and bullying weren't on the social radar, either at school or in the workplace. I vividly remember a classmate who was relentlessly hounded until her parents actually transferred her to another school. As far as I could tell, the only reason her tormentors decided she needed to be bullied was that she ran faster than any of the boys. It didn't take much to be "different" in the early 1970s, especially in a small parochial school. Living outside the lines was risky.

Counselors work with both bullies and victims but only recently have professionals turned their attention to the group called Bystanders. These are the people who know what's going on, know it's wrong but are afraid to take any risks inherent in helping the victim. In elementary school I was a bystander. I knew that the reasons my classmate's harassers gave for picking on her were silly and probably untrue, but I didn't speak up.

In certain settings, bystanders might be perfectly right about the fear of retaliation. School cliques can be cruel. Employees in companies with ruthless policies and no union protection can be fired for telling the truth. But the stubborn fact is that injustices don't usually change until someone challenges them. The challenge often begins when one person speaks up.

One of my intentions for this year is to get into the habit of speaking up for others who are being slammed. In the current economic and emotional climate this might include whole groups of people; hard times always produce scapegoats and underdogs are easy targets. For easygoing introverts, speaking up is a real pain - we'd rather kick back and shoot the breeze over a beer.

But in cases where another person's safety, livelihood, reputation or even life (remember the recent Phoebe Prince case, where the victim committed suicide?) are at stake, doing the right thing trumps personal comfort.

Although some of us are pretty good at blending in, the truth is that we're all a little quirky. The life we save may someday be our own.