Responsibility: claiming what isn’t ours

(versão portuguesa)

I went out for coffee with someone I hadn’t seen in a few years, and for two hours, I listened to her talk about what she had done, what she was doing, and what she wanted to do in the future. As the minutes went by, I started to feel trapped.

By the time we said goodbye, the balance was absurd: she hadn’t asked a single question and had barely left any room for me to speak. She walked away knowing absolutely nothing about me, not even my recent breast cancer diagnosis.

The situation annoyed me: how can someone talk for so long without showing the slightest consideration for the person sitting across from them? This wasn’t a close friend opening up, someone having a bad day, or an enthusiastic pitch about a new project; it wasn’t even a deep discussion on an interesting topic. It was an ego-monologue.

But beneath my irritation lay a deeper sense of frustration, fueled by a different question: how did I tolerate two hours of that without reacting, without saying a word?

This duality took me back to a workshop I attended a while ago. The trainer, forcing the boundaries of our understanding, posed a question that shocked the room: “In an abusive relationship, can the victim bear even a tiny percentage of responsibility for the situation?”

At the time, I was appalled. Was he blaming the victim? My gut reaction was so intense that it took me a moment to realize he was not talking about guilt. I don’t remember the discussion that followed, but the core idea stuck with me: to say a victim has no respons-ability is to say, literally, that they lack the ability to respond.

Regardless of my feelings about the question, about the wordplay, the mere act of framing it challenged my thinking. It made me question my own respons-ability in situations where I feel like a victim, while knowing that asking «What can I do?» doesn’t take from anyone’s responsibility.

At the café, I could have said something to break the pattern, using assertiveness or humour. I could have shared my discomfort, or I could have walked away. But my instinct is to be cordial and avoid conflict, and in this case, I took it too far. Those two hours made my boundaries clear.

The next time I found myself cornered by an ego-monologue, I was prepared. I sensed my agitation and realised I had a decision to make. I wish I could say that I found a clever remark, or a polite way to shift the dynamic. Instead, I treated it as an ethnographic expedition into their mind, observing the behaviour and taking mental notes. I also cut the conversation short and became more selective about who I spend my time with.

What could be just one bad coffee date that ended with me complaining, turned into a core realization. It didn’t change my personality overnight, but it gave me clues to anticipate the pattern and consciously choose my response.

Remaining in a state of indignation creates a stalemate. By declaring that the fault lies with the other person, we limit our options: they are who they are, and we have no power to change them.

There are moments when being (too) responsible can be harmful; but in cases like this, where at first glance we bear no responsibility, taking it on can be useful.