"Because you're bored, it's Friday and the old blog needs updating..."

Link: The Friday Foofah
Title: Actions and Reactions

1. When upset do you: scurry off to a corner to recover alone, growl at the hapless people who're silly enough to be near you, or continue as if nothing happened while burning up inside?
Mostly choice one, especially that growling part. Sometimes I just sulk, but mostly I vent (and vent, and vent...). I've tried choice two. I'm not very good at it, but sometimes (at work, for instance) it's the only way to go.

2. One of your best friends turns out to be saying hurtful and untrue things behind your back. You don't want to believe it - but it's true. Would you confront them, ignore them, or wail and scream privately but act as if nothing happened to their face ? (Or any other reactions)
To start with I think I'd do choice two, at least long enough to get my ammunition lined up. But I doubt I'd be able to have a conversation with them; avoidance would be my choice. "Too busy to chat" kind of passive-aggression. If it was really bad stuff, I think I'd eventually ask them what they actually told the other people to see how it all matched up.

Y'know, some of the people I work with do this. Eventually, if they are doing it on company time, at the service desks, and I hear about it from friends who don't work here, I tell the boss. So we all got lectured yesterday about chit-chatting at the desks. And in the afternoon, the very people who are the major problem were saying, "Well, where ARE we supposed to talk??" Hel-LO--that's the point; don't DO IT AT ALL!

Ahem. Sorry. I think I'm better now...

3. When a situation arises where you're accused of being the party that's at fault, is your first reaction to: make an excuse to defend yourself, start analyzing your behavior to see if the accusation is true, or immediately accept that it must have been you?
Oddly enough, the more likely I am to have been at fault the more likely I am to denydenydeny. I've improved a lot on that. Now I just try to sit quietly and listen to everything the person says. Which is quite hard for me. Tortuous in fact. Once the defensive mechanism shuts down, however, I will then spend months beating myself up about it. Sometimes years (depends on how bad the issue is).