32 years old and I literally just realized what passive aggressive means

someone told me the phrase in high school but I think they were borderline losing their mind and teaching me what they were doing but they said "I've had it was the passive aggressive bs" and I was always mellow calm and I hated how they were treating me so I thought they were teaching me what to say for what they were doing to me but I also thought it was what I was doing but I didn't know how because I didn't know what passive aggressive meant

like 2 mins ago it dawned on me

passive is to not attack to be at peace

aggressive is to attack aggro make work cause pain and suffering

so to sit back like everything is good and nothing wrong but at the same time force them to work and think and attack them for no reason

huh I feel a little smarter now

I still have no idea why the person in high school told/taught me what he did

I called him bad names but that's because I didn't like how he was around me but somehow we were best buds mostly because we just found each other and gravitated towards each other most of the high school days

I thought maybe it meant talking about someone behind their back

like face to face being cool

but talking to other people when they're not around saying you don't like how they act

I thought when you are chill and everything is good then when you get a little wild and start being mean but playful not trying to hurt them but being mean to their face

I had no idea what it meant for a good 15 years

I even thought maybe it meant like when your chill then you get in bros car to go somewhere and he absolutely refuses to turn the ac on when its like 105 outside and you just give up

then just giving up every time

point is I had literally no idea not a clue I had about 20 ideas of what it could be

somehow I got to the point I thought I knew what it meant

and it was going over to someone's house and asking for anything period

as simple as flipping a light switch flipping the switch on the ceiling fan to make it go the other direction to not put out the lighter asking to use the restroom

I just either did it or let it go

and asking for anything made them think so that's aggressive it means you made them do something without their consent like thinking 

and just doing stuff without asking can be aggressive too because what if they didn't want you to do that 

he told me "I'm tired of the passive aggressive bs" and it literally broke me for several years