Gonna do a bit of the devil's advocate thing here, because of course I am.
When it comes to passive aggression, one thing that occurs to me is that there can be some mishandling and confusion on BOTH sides.
For instance, when I look up the term, one example I found was this:
"For example, a person might repeatedly make excuses to avoid certain people as a way of expressing their dislike or anger towards those individuals."
See, that's how people often interpret things, because of course they do. But that doesnt mean it's the intention.
Like, you might ask me if I want to go to a movie with you. I say no. You might ask again later. I still say no.
People often seem to have this idea that this means I have something against them. To me, this is REALLY illogical. But it happens. Based on the behavior of certain friends of mine lately, I'm relatively certain that they've gotten fed up with me over this perceived behavior of mine.
But it's real simple: When I say I dont want to go to a movie... it's because I dont want to go to a bloody movie. Your presence there, or lack thereof, is irrelevant. I just dont want to go, period. I dont watch movies, period. And I'm not going to go do something that I have zero interest in simply because some friend is doing it. Oddly, no amount of explaining this to those around me gets them to realize that asking is pointless. And yes, I've very DIRECTLY explained it in no uncertain terms, as I'm doing it here. Has no effect whatsoever.
It's the same for stuff like "making mistakes on purpose". The idea of purposefully forgetting to buy things to strike out at someone.... in my mind, that really doesnt make any sense. Forgetting to buy something useful means that the person doing the apparently on-purpose forgetting ALSO suffers from the lack of said thing (even moreso if they then have to return to the store later to pick up the forgotten thing, when they wouldnt have needed to if they'd remembered the first time). When someone says they forget something.... they might have forgot something. Even if it happens repeatedly. I get this one all the time as well. No, it's not that I am avoiding X thing or hate Y thing. It's not that I didnt buy toothpaste for the house because 'bwahahah, now Bob wont have toothpaste! My master plan is coming to fruition! That'll teach him to have a face!" It's that I have a memory like a cheese grater. Again though, people tend to just instantly assume that I am choosing to forget on purpose. Despite that not making sense. If I'm going to be irritable at someone, I'm not going to do so by annoying the heck out of myself. Why would I? I cant even count the number of times people in my life have commented on my "selective memory".
Unfortunately alot of people in my life CONSTANTLY get the wrong idea about alot of the things I say or do.
Dont get me wrong: I can be irritable. But I usually make that REALLY obvious. I dont bother with the "passive" part.
At the same time, all of these aspects can be exaggerated during times of distress, or when my mood is bad. I'm betting this is the case for many. We all have our negative traits and bad habits, and when moody, those come out more whether we like it or not.
Anyway, just some thoughts on it.
Everything you wrote is logical and the same for me. If there's something wrong, speak up and resolve the issue - it's simple, straightforward and helps a
lot along the way. Being transparent about your feelings about other people and intentions (without being rude) makes life much easier in the long run.
The thing I realised with NTs is that they often
aren't very logical at all! Additional thing I realised on the example of my sister-in-law and her family is that female NTs
very often fear confrontation of any kind - and if they fear confrontation, they turn to being passive-aggressive in the most infuriating of ways. Just because we are as we are won't make other people the same - they have their own perception of the world and what is considered normal.
If someone refuses when I invite them to movies - that's simple, as you said, and means they just aren't interested. Instead, I will proceed to invite next time someone that will be - and
in this instance I can be accused for passive aggression by the first person because I didn't try inviting them again... Ridiculous? Very much so. To me.
However, some people just
are like that and
really think like that. Why do I perceive my flatmates behaviour as passive aggression?
1. Glaring whenever she think I'm not looking (which is obvious even to me).
2. Snappy answers to any of my questions.
3. Condescending comments about my skills or personality traits that are later turned into a 'joke'.
News flash, joking isn't intended to sound like an attack at someone. I did take these for jokes in the beginning, but they are gradually turning more and more nasty with time and I have no interest to
be a joke to someone. She's even more condescending whenever she sees me eating meat (she's a vegetarian) or junk food (because healthy eating is the goal of her life), or if she doesn't see me exercising for a day.
4. We share the shopping because of the quarantine to avoid leaving the house. We take the shopping list,
always. I
always buy all the things on the list, also things I never eat or use myself. She
somehow most of the time forgets to buy things that she uses very rarely but that I use every day. Last time she said that she went only to a fruit shop (which is next to a normal shop and which is not what we talked about), so she didn't buy honey and other stuff (but I saw new packages of rice and canned food on her shelf - does she think I'm stupid or something?). If not a passive-aggressive, then still irresponsible and utterly selfish behaviour.
The list could go on... And the longer it goes, the more you start to perceive every single thing the other person does as offensive.
I think the problem that we as NDs have is that it's really difficult to us to wrap our heads around possibility that people just don't see the world in the same way. The theory of mind stuff, you know. Passive aggression logically makes no sense - it solves nothing and only deepens the existing problems. Emotionally, if you perceive it as fear of confrontation resulting in passive expression of stored anger, it becomes, surprisingly, quite possible.