How To Be Intimidating

Boo!

By Snarky LisaPublished 7 months ago • 3 min read

Ah, intimidation. Wouldn’t we all love to have the ability to do it? Those with the capacity to be intimidating are powerful. They scare others into submission, bend minds and mindsets to their will, and can even get away with heinous crimes and deeds that would likely land most behind poles of steel with possible mini-warzones behind them.

With that being said, you might want to be intimidating. Heck, you might not have any ability to scare someone over the age of 2 despite wishing on many moons and stars over the years of your existence. If any of this applies — you’ve come to the right place!

This article is dedicated to teaching the art of intimidation. Because with time and effort, passions and patience: anyone can be capable of making fear from frustration!

Please note that unlike most of my articles, these pieces of advice are fully guaranteed to work! I said so, after all, and so did many professionals I talked to before writing this. So lie back, stash away your skepticism, and soak in all the potential methods for intimidating people on this planet of ours.

Being Shy

Traditional intimidation often consists of yelling, screaming, and making yourself known in the most terrifying way you can given the circumstances thrown at you. As such, being introverted should be considered the opposite by basically every definition of the word — right?

Wrong. You see, it is very possible to be intimidating while being shy. And by “shy,” I don’t mean being aloof.

Giving everyone you meet the silent treatment unless they meet your curated criteria for interaction and acting self-controlled when they do just looks cool. Come on, look at all the bad boys in fiction out there!

By contrast, actual shyness is different. You do talk to people…when necessary. You mumble, keep your voice quiet, and don’t speak up for yourself all that much.

It should be very clear that doing so is intimidating. As inherently social and intelligent animals, humans are used to having someone either reply with energy or conversely, have a veneer of confidence if they choose not to. By acting shy, you’re disrupting people’s expectations. Right?

Speaking of which…

Be A Complete Doormat

As I’ve stated in the previous section, we are all inherently social and intelligent (or at least, capable of being such) animals by default. Because of this, we also usually have some sort of self-preservation instinct. Most of us also learn, over time, to expect this from other people as well.

Don’t get me wrong, being a doormat can be part of a self-defense mechanism. By doing what you’re told even when you’re not happy, you can avoid making a bigger fuss and potentially risking retaliation from someone you’ll have a hell of a hard time fighting back against.

However, there is another side to doormatism: the extreme one. You see, excessive demands that are A: to the ostensibly irreversible or difficult to reverse detriment of your well-being and B: escapable aren’t exactly demands that someone with a good sense of self-preservation would necessarily follow. They are, however, demands a total doormat would!

So go ahead and put yourself in danger! I won’t specify how due to, ugh, Medium rules. But if you can read this article and engage with it, I’m sure you get the idea!

Like my previous tip, it will totally subvert people’s expectations! Surprise is always scary, am I right?

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As you can surely see by now, my tips on how to be an intimidating person are very effective. Nothing could possibly go wrong!

Any other thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments!

*This article is satire LOL.