Already a while ago, I hosted a work-related event for a group of international peers at our summer house. After a long day of productive sessions, we did what you naturally do in Finland. We headed to the sauna and the hot tub to unwind.
In Finnish culture, the sauna is a deeply egalitarian, body-neutral space where professional titles, egos, and judgments are strictly left at the door. But here is the critical context. There was absolutely no psychological safety in this specific group.
We were a collection of professionals navigating a highly complex dynamic where trust was practically nonexistent. Then, one of my international peers leaned back in the water and casually announced that it was so nice to hang around with Finnish women because we are real size, unlike the women back in her home country.
I was completely stunned.
Not just because of the cultural violation, but because of the sheer physical absurdity of what she just said. The comment was entirely disconnected from the physical reality of the people sitting next to her. She delivered the line with total confidence, but it was so glaringly inaccurate that it felt surreal.
My mind was spinning, trying to decode the intent. But when I remembered her professional track record, the bizarre behavior made perfect sense. This was a peer who was notoriously known for stabbing anyone in the back if she thought it would give her a slight career advantage.
Projection and the Plausible Deniability Power Play
When a known backstabber delivers a comment completely detached from reality, they are using a defense mechanism called psychological projection.
She was likely deeply insecure in that environment. To soothe her own ego, her brain warped reality. By calling the Finnish women real size, a loaded phrase often meant to imply being larger or heavier, she was projecting her own insecurities onto us to artificially elevate herself.
More importantly, it was a highly calculated power play using plausible deniability. She delivered a subtle insult wrapped in the exact phrasing of a compliment. If I called her out on the insult, she could immediately play the victim, gaslight me by saying she meant it as praise, and accuse me of being too sensitive.
This toxic playbook extends far beyond physical comparisons. I have seen the same peer loudly bring up a sensitive private situation in a public meeting—information they likely gathered through the office rumor mill. They frame it as checking in or showing empathy, but it is a classic social ambush. They are signaling that they hold power over your narrative, all while wearing the mask of a supportive colleague.
…And then I snapped
To be entirely transparent, I have not always handled these ambushes with stoic grace. On one occasion, when someone dragged my private life into a public professional event, I did not freeze. I snapped. I lashed out hard, and in the aftermath, I watched my capacity to trust the person collapse to zero. For a long time, I viewed that reaction as a failure of composure. It wasn’t. It was an amygdala hijack. When someone weaponizes your personal vulnerability in front of an audience, your nervous system registers a severe social threat. Snapping is not a lack of professionalism; it is an emergency ejection system firing off. You do not lose trust in those moments because you are paranoid. You lose it because your instincts are trying to keep you safe.
If this is how your peer attempts to navigate power dynamics in a hot tub, you can absolutely guarantee it is how they collaborate in the meeting room. A person who uses projection to subtly insult your appearance, or uses your private life as leverage, will inevitably use the exact same tactic to undermine your work and steal your credit.
The Hostess Trap vs The Accidental Defense
Even though the hot tub comment was completely absurd, it still felt terrible. There is a deeply rooted neurobiological reason for that.
When you are operating in a low-trust environment, your nervous system is on guard. When someone delivers a veiled insult or exposes your private life in public, your amygdala recognizes a threat. You immediately recognize that you are being measured or exposed, and your cortisol spikes.
So what did I actually do in that hot tub?
Usually, covert power plays work best when the target is trapped by social obligation. Because I was the host, I was socially conditioned to prioritize the comfort of my guests over my own boundaries. The hostess trap dictates that you awkwardly smile, let the comment slide, and desperately keep the peace.
But my sheer shock overrode my social conditioning. I did not smile. I did not agree. I just stared at her in complete, deadpan silence.
Without even realizing it, my natural reaction was the exact psychological tactic you are supposed to use to disarm a toxic comment.
How to Handle the Covert Insult
We are professionally conditioned to politely nod and smooth over the awkwardness. But validating zero-sum, collaborator only rewards their power play. The next time you face a backhanded compliment or a public exposure of your private business, skip the polite nod and use one of these three research-backed strategies to shut it down.
1. The Extinction Stare In behavioral psychology, extinction is the process of eliminating a behavior by completely removing the positive reinforcement. This is exactly what my silent stare accomplished in the hot tub. When a peer makes a toxic comparison, do not smile, do not nod, and do not agree. Simply hold eye contact with a completely neutral, blank expression for three full seconds. The profound, suffocating silence will force them to hear exactly what they just said, and they will usually backtrack immediately.
2. The Hard Pivot If you want to maintain the peace but refuse to engage in the toxicity, use a hard conversational pivot. Acknowledge the pause, completely ignore the premise of their comment, and change the subject to something entirely unrelated.
3. The Direct Boundary If the peer is a chronic offender, you have to draw a hard verbal line. You do not need to be aggressive, but you must be incredibly clear. For a backhanded compliment, state that you prefer not to focus on physical comparisons. For public exposure of private life, firmly say, “That is not in the agenda, so we will not be discussing it here.”
True collaboration requires psychological safety, and psychological safety cannot exist in a room where people are constantly measuring you or exposing your personal life against their own distorted reality.
The best peers do not need to put someone else down to prove their own value. They are confident enough to just sit in the hot tub, enjoy the moment, and leave the measuring tape and the rumors at the office.
