this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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chapotraphouse
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Yeah, that's understandable, I just wanted to mention for the sake of parsing our friend Awoo's tone.
As an aside, Awoo was also right that saying "calm down" is usually a bad strategy for deescalation if they are actually mad at you. Anger tends to come from frustration, i.e. a feeling of helplessness. "Calm down" tends to read as being condescending or dismissive and thereby only agitates people more in such cases. It's my experience that framing it as asking for a favor or suggesting that both of you modulate your tone (not by just saying "let's calm down") can work better because it implies a recognition of agency or equality between you or the other person.
I'm absolutely not good at diplomacy, so take it with a grain of salt, but I felt obligated to suggest an alternative if I'm going to say something is not a good idea.
Just because you can't tell doesn't mean that it's your fault. There are lots of reasons (notably ASD) that can make it hard to tell even if you aren't a) dealing with text b) from a person you don't know c) communicating in a different style than you're used to.
It'll be easier to improve if you don't blame yourself for things you can't help.
the only path there is to work out what they're mad about and productively, empathetically, and concretely work slowly towards a common ground while genuinely apologizing in specific for offense given. it's much easier when they're not mad directly at you, though, as it's more straightforward to establish empathy.
deescalation is hard in online stuff. IRL, you can establish empathy and shortcut the angry response by asking people how they're doing, what they need, etc., getting them to think about the present rather than whatever is riling them up. maybe something similar could work in online discussions if couched carefully. it only works if they're not mad at you, though.