Type A - Insult or not?

[PanEtLesBurgers]

I got called a ‘type A personality’ yesterday. It was delivered as an insult, was very much uncalled for, and took me rather by surprise.

Obviously context is everything, but how would you take it if someone called you that in a social setting?

Context needed. What actually happened?

Bossy (maybe bullying) , rigid (no flexibility) and wanting to control things (as you know this person meant things negatively)

If the person meant it positively then a leader who gets things done. Organised with lists, plans and itineraries etc so the rest can chill.

I wouldn't mind personally but I recognise that I can be a bit of a workaholic. But I wouldn't like to be on the end of anything delivered as an insult even if I wouldn't otherwise find the description insulting if that makes sense.

I am sure someone is going to come along in a minute to mention that the whole "type A" thing was linked to debunked studies concerning smoking and heart disease, but I think that's not relevant to the point.

Do you agree with the comment? There are positives and negatives for both types A and B.

We were staying at a holiday home with another family. DH is friends with her husband.

She was cooking something one way, I asked if I could do a bit for myself another way (due to a food intolerance, but I didn’t get a chance to explain that) and a chopping board and knife were thrust furiously at me.

Well that's not what type A means at all.

Is that the first time that you've intervened in how somebody else was doing something on this trip?

I’m not sure it was intervening. I didn’t stop her from cooking it the first way.

it’s difficult to tell how what you asked came across. Why didn’t you just say “I’m intolerant to X - would you mind putting a small portion aside for me before you add X?”

Also wonder whether there were prior ‘signs of tension’…

She probably thinks you thought she wasn’t going it right or criticising her way. If you'd have just said “I have xxx intolerance, do you mind if I cut a bit on a different chopping board” then it probably wouldn’t have been an issue.

If you didn’t get a chance to explain about the intolerance then I imagine she thought you meant her way of cooking something wasn’t good enough for you.

It is one of those statements that depends on context. yes, in this context, it was not a compliment. It is unlikely such a statement, as a compliment or insult, would come completely out of the blue so I have to assume there is already tension.

The way you refer to her suggets that you are not exactly buddies so I assume you don't routinely get on normaly but are both grinning and bearing this for your husbands' sake? Which makes no sense to me frankly, but that's a different conversation.

Was she American? They seem to use these type descriptors a lot.

I’ve never heard of type A and type B

She thought you were criticising her. That could have been cleared up with an explanation.

I guess “type A” is marginally less rude than “bossy cow” which is what she really meant.

She was perfectly well aware of the intolerance. I felt like I couldn’t win.

I then offered to prepare item B on the menu. My way of preparing it was scoffed at, and a second version swiftly prepared that her kids ‘would eat’.

Thanks all for your responses. I’m sure I wasn’t being bossy, but perhaps I could’ve worded it differently. It was very much a pot calling the kettle black situation!

Hopefully you’ll be saying goodbye soon and you’ll never have to holiday with them again. Scoffing and saying ‘my kids won’t eat that’ is uncalled for.