Reactions Are Information
What you choose to react to says a lot about you. If you train yourself to observe what people choose to react to, you will learn a lot about them. The intensity of their reaction is proportional to how much something bothered them. There’s always more than meets the eye.
Someone’s harsh reaction, harsher than the situation demanded, is never just about that incident. It is a trigger. That incident has triggered something in them. Either they were already frustrated and the incident gave them an outlet, or the incident reminded them of their own frustration.
Reactions are premium, but people don’t treat them as such. They are the mirror through which you can peek into someone’s personality. This is also why I choose to react with utmost care. Not every response warrants my reaction. Most of the time, there is no reaction. Even if somebody hates me, they will not get a reaction out of me, even though the feeling of hatred is mutual.
You give away your position by showing them through your reaction what bothers you. The goal is not to bottle everything up or put up a face. You have to understand that your reaction is the only feedback they will have on whether their approach worked or not. If someone takes a jibe at you but your reaction is a simple, regular smile, it tells them nothing. They won’t know whether it hit where they wanted it to hit.
If someone hates you but you choose to behave as if you didn’t even notice, that will frustrate them even more. They will be forced to acknowledge that maybe they are seeing things, that maybe you don’t care as much as they thought you would. You have stolen their satisfaction.
The same pathway acts as a mirror for you when you want to read someone, and also becomes your shield when you want to frustrate someone.