Choose Not To Respond

I had a misunderstanding with a friend a few days ago. During this COVID situation, you see a lot of dormant negative emotions arise. The dispute was done via texts, which also included a lot of name-callings. My first reaction was to be upset and get distracted. Then I decided to take action. I apologized to the offended party and offered to have a call with her to clarify things. This was not done in a sorry attempt to mend fences but basically to have a clean break.

The first red flag was when the person refused to have a call with me to talk it out. It shows the person having trust issues and not wanting to have a confrontation. I mulled over the name callings. I thought to myself if any of the allegations were true. It was not. It was a moment of truth. How do I respond? I chose to ignore the messages completely. By engaging in further conversations with this person, I am simply affirming the name-calling. What people tend to do under these circumstances is to carry on the conversation. Ultimately, it ends up giving the other party the upper hand and justifying all their accusations.