On Not Engaging

I’ve noticed a consistent instinct in myself: I prefer not to engage with people and organisations involved in harassment campaigns, coercion, threats, or stalking, except where engagement is necessary to establish clear boundaries.

This isn’t avoidance in the casual sense. It’s pattern recognition.

These situations rarely stay contained. They tend to escalate. Engagement doesn’t resolve the issue as often as it feeds it, so I opt out.

Engagement works when people are operating in good faith. When they’re not, the usual rules break down. What looks like communication becomes something closer to entanglement. Many people who engage in harassment test boundaries and intensify when they receive a response. The same can apply in negotiations during security incidents when threat behaviour is involved.

In those cases, disengagement isn’t passive. It is selective.

It is a refusal to participate in a dynamic that depends on reaction, and a recognition that not every situation improves with more input. Sometimes, the most effective way to prevent escalation is not to enter the cycle at all.

This approach isn’t universal. There are situations where documentation, formal channels, or legal responses are necessary. In professional contexts, where engagement with people involved in harmful conduct is required, the principles of procedural fairness and treating everyone consistently during investigations remain important.

However, as a default stance, particularly from the perspective of someone who has experienced harm, non-engagement has a quiet efficiency, even though formal engagement is sometimes required.

I apply the same approach to social media and platforms, and do not personally monitor channels that expose me to harm, although media monitoring can be useful in professional contexts. I have formalised this practice to better understand information environments during large-scale events and incidents at work.

Choosing not to engage personally preserves attention for what is actually worth engaging with and denies escalation the conditions it requires. Being aware of our instincts allows us to understand them and adjust our responses as needed.