Midwest "nice" could not be more fake

 I have a new theory about the impact of the pervasive passive aggressive personality type that dominates the Midwest. I had a brief contentious interaction with a co-worker in the fall and found out MONTHS LATER that this person has been stewing over this ever since and has been enrolling others at work in her version of events (which have gotten juicier and juicier in the apparently multiple retellings as the months have gone by). 

I think what really bothers her about the interaction, and the subsequent conversation we had a few days later that was supposed to clear the air, is that, as she says, I don't really care. I've been thinking about that ever since I heard it last week, and I must conclude that I don't really care. I don't care about her supposed trauma and incessant drama-mongering. I don't care if she thinks I'm mean or thinks I'm insufficiently apologetic for upsetting her. Her emotions have nothing to do with me; which she makes clear over and over again in the way she presents the interaction - she needs to be upset and I gave her an (as far as I can tell, very welcome) excuse to be so.

I think what really bothers her, and many of the other Midwesterners I have interacted with since I moved here, is that I am not crushed by their approbation. She wants me to wilt at her outrage. That's what's actually missing in my non-Midwesterness. It's not so much the passive aggression (which I also don't have) - it's the lack of response to other's disapproval. Because I don't care what they think of me. I really don't. I know who I am and I know what my strengths and flaws are. Their opinion of me is none of my business (a quote attributed to motivational speaker Wayne Dyer as well as others). But really. Like, not just as an assertion or an affirmation. 

It's not that I don't respect them, though my reaction (or lack of it) could be interpreted that way. It's more that I don't envy them, I don't want to be like them. So they don't inspire me, and their disapproval doesn't galvanize me or even really provoke much of a response.

I think their extreme fragility and reactivity is a result of, and a cause of, "Midwest nice" - because no one can bear to be criticized or scolded, so everyone PRETENDS to be nice, when they really aren't, and they are stabbing you in the back with intense glee at every opportunity. Not only is it a miserable way to live, but it is SUPER dysfunctional and results in nothing positive ever happening because we can't talk honestly and we can't make any progress because everyone is too busy being fake af and protecting their fragile ego all the time, all the while throwing people under the bus. Fuck that!