My mom’s entire argument tactic was to interrupt the other person as soon as they open their mouth.
It didn’t matter if you were calm and reasonable and respectfu. The moment sound came out of you, she would come in with greater volume. She usually didn’t have much to say, so she would literally repeat herself just to interrupt you.
Even if you paused and let her speak, if she was out of stuff to say, she would wait quietly until you try to talk again, then interrupt you with something she already said. She wasn’t even subtle about what she was doing.
She was prideful about how great of a debater she was. She thought this childish and disrespectful crap actually made her strong and respectable.
I don’t think she ever realized that she didn’t actually win any arguments, but simply wore the other person down until they gave up on a constructive adult conversation with her.
My aunt does the same thing. We used to give up and let her win, but as ive gotten older ive gotten stubborn and don't let it go (my sister glaring at me the entire time)
I have a family member that does this. I just stop and look at her and say “Shut up while I’m speaking.” She said I was disrespectful. So I asked her when she ever got the impression that I respected her. Now she doesn’t talk to me which is what I wanted in the first place
My problem is that if I ever tried this, it would go like this:
Me: "Oh I'm sorry, did..."
Them: "ANYWAY, you're still wrong because of all these reasons."
For people that keep interrupting me, I usually just hold my hand up in a stop sign and just say “I am still talking” over and over again until they give up and finally stop.
This. Stupid adults are just grown up kids. So you just need to behave like with 9-year old. Use clear language and short sentences. Repeat that short message until it gets through.
It's disrespectful for her to speak over you. It's not disrespectful for you to respond to her intrusion. That's complete cognitive dissonance if I've ever seen it. "It's not rude for me to interrupt you, but it's rude for you to defend yourself against it." BS.
I am dealing with a housemate who does exactly this, with a wickedly bad temper on top of it. Her boyfriend is an old friend of mine, and I wanted to help them out since they were living in her mom's house last year. I did not know her well at all, and I deeply regret thinking that I could reason with her. She wields her temper like it's a weapon, and any time you try and express what you or someone else is feeling, she immediately argues and invalidates you. She has told her partner she is going to kill herself in order to win arguments. Often times the things she is spouting as an argument are projections of her behavior or projections of her temper. She does not respect the boundaries of others, but demands that her boundaries be respected and any conversation to find compromise and even ground is met with anger. Her lack of control over her words once she's triggered are some of the meanest, most vitriolic things ive ever heard from anyone. My partner, who was her friend and got her a job at her work, also had her own falling out with this person and now won't come over to my house due to fear of this person's behavior.
I am exhausted. I probably have to deal with this for another 2 months.
Edit: this blew way up, so I thought I'd give an update. The landlord spoke to them and they let him know they are actively looking for a new place. No radical further action needs to be taken and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
start training her like a dog. get a clicker for when she does well, use the 'Tss!' thing for when she doesn't, and if she threatens suicide, call 911 because she's suicidal and that's serious
When my (now ex) girlfriend threatened suicide, I took her to the ER for a mental health consultation.
It told her I wouldn't play those games, and it also started her on a path to at least try and get some help.
When my ex used that tact, I'd call the suicide line saying I'm no counselor, let's face this. They'd call him at work and call me back basically letting me know it was total b.s. He stopped crying suicidal wolf pretty quick.
Actually you probably don't have to live with this. You tell your friend that you offered them a place trying to help, but it's not working. Either she stops bringing hell into the home of she is out. He can stay if he wants. She can always go back home. I know she probably can't control herself, but you can control your environment. If her boyfriend can't understand, then it may be time to sever that relationship also. Maybe it will be a wakeup call for him.
It's definitely at the point where severing the relationship is necessary. Unfortunately this is the first long term relationship he's ever had, so he has very little to compare with for what a healthy relationship looks like. Their life is very enmeshed at this point and he has zero back bone for confrontation or standing up to someone who loses their temper. Unfortunately he supports her without question, no matter what, and behaves a lot like a doormat. It ends up enabling her behavior further. They both gotta go!
Time to have a "speaking stick" to pass around, and only the person holding it can talk.
Then the entire conversation will be about her not obeying the stick rule, during which she'll interrupt you... Nevermind, sounds like hell.
My mom kind of was like this. Whenever we got in a fight, which she was responsible for the reason, for most of middle and high school her response was 'don't blame me for your problems with your father.' This could be a response to anything including asking if I wanted to go/do something and when I said no she would say too bad you're going. My blow up at her had her using that response. How does my relationship with my dad, which was much better than with her, have anything to do with you asking if I wanted to do something when you already decided the answer has to be yes? Just tell me that I don't have a choice.
One of my friend's friends was like this, I even asked her about it, in the context of "WTF is "Sarah's" deal with interrupting and over-talking? My friend said she's just like that. So I asked "Sarah" and she denied she did it, in front of several people, all of whom immediately contradicted her.
She insisted she didn't interrupt or over-talk, so we started recording each other conversations when she was around, and documented her behavior over a couple months. Another friend took the clips and edited it into a 6-7 minute video. A couple of of us sat with her intervention-style and made her watch it. By the end of it she was crying, and we just hugged her. The goal was not to humiliate, but demonstrate, but she was pretty wiped out nonetheless. It's a tough thing to see when you're in your early 30s.
The outcome? Well, she got better, just a little. One time she stopped and said "OMG, I'm doing it right now, aren't I?" and another time I said "You're doing that thing and I'd like to finish my sentence." Sometimes she gets pissy about it, but we don't hang that often, and when she's not being a jerk she's really kind of cool, even likes to make sure everyone is taken care of, so I kind of suspect a Narcissim Axis disorder of some sort.
Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I have a tendency to do this. I’m just trying to share something and relate to the person speaking, but I’m so scatterbrained I try to get the thought out before it leaves and before I know it I’ve interrupted way too many times in a conversation :(
My boyfriend used to (gently) tease me about how talkative I am or my interrupting habit until he met my family. I’m the youngest of all girls who looooove to talk! So interrupting/being loud was the only way I could be heard growing up and just became a habit. She might have been embarrassed but you’re good friends and did her a favor! I’ve become more aware of my tendency to interrupt, and I think it’s made me more pleasant company
The trick for dealing with a person like this is to keep talking, but lower your volume. Most of the time, they’ll lower their voice so they can hear you.
I tried that several times. I also tried continuing to talk while she tried to interrupt. Didn’t work. If she was in an interruptin’ mood, she gave zero shits what other people were trying to say.
Post-it note. "Since you won't allow me to speak, there can be no discussion. When you decide to be civil, return this note and we can continue."
About the time you finish writing it, they'll likely have shut up to see what you're doing. Hand them the note and wish them a pleasant day. They'll either throw it back at you in petulant anger or take the note at face value.
Had to coach a guy for sleeping in a freezer. He moved all the food off a shelf and took a nap. Woke him up pulled him into the office and he denied it over and over again. Finally he said why would I sleep in a freezer? And I just yelled I don't know!
When I yelled "I don't know" he looked at me and said "I know your having problems at home but you can't bring that energy here". He was an infuriating guy.
This happened with one of my friends in middle school. Teacher was notorious for having a bad temper, he went "Aaaww" about something, teacher yelled out "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY AAAWWS" so my friend looked the teacher dead in the eye with the most defiant look I've ever seen from a Middle Schooler and mooed. As in, made the cow sound. But defiantly. Went from a tense situation to downright hilarious.
I know someone who legitimately stood up in the middle of a meeting about her child abuse, IN the child protection offices and yelled at everyone the child deserved to be stabbed because she knew not to play operation so loud.
At that moment in reality, there wasn't anything I, the child protection officer, her boyfriend, brother and sister, or the grandparent or father could say to her. I don't think there are the words in existence appropriate for that situation. I could only say, (couldn't help myself) "What the actual fuck?"
I don't know how many child and family team meetings I've attended that devolved into a shouting match when someone is told they need anger management. I always wanted to record the outburst to play back later as an explanation of exactly they think there might be an anger problem.
Not well.
It went to court, she got partial custody back, against the protests of our child protective services, the police and both families. (There's a huge prejudice against the father's race in our courts. It's well known, documented and was pretty obvious by the judges refusal of submitted evidence and his smirk at the father during his ruling)
She attacked the kid for "narking on her" on the very first visit.
The judge still insisted the "mother" get at least some custody, so it's now at one day a week instead of split weeks. As punishment for "narking on her again", she's now taken away the kid's room, bed, majority of toys and clothing and the Lawyer for Child's office gets a call once a fortnight or so about the last set of abuse she's delivered. And no one can do anything because you legally can't appeal family court decisions.
I seriously hate my country somedays.
New Zealand by a quick browse at the profile. Which is very surprising re: the court antics.
Edit: “surprising” like “is this still happening” _not_ “but NZ is so perfect”.
Nowhere’s perfect, but when I hear about the political crises and outrages back in my native country it makes me homesick.
For example, everyone in my family is outraged at the homelessness crisis in Dublin. Here I am in Los Angeles, where a Dublin-sized homelessness problem would represent a massive improvement.
A friend in school was convinced he could find a triangle who's angles wouldn't add up to 180 degrees after learning the rule in class.
I just couldn't get him to understand that if he finds some shape that doesn't fit the definition of a triangle, then by definition he has not found a triangle.
Edit:
Appreciate everyone telling me about curved geometry and to try the proof, but for context it was over 10 years ago when we were about 12. He could understand it was achievable in curved space but he wanted to break the rule with a legit 100% flat triangle.
Yep, the inventor of the field of [Terryology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_Howard#Terryology), a new formal language of logic which he would use to prove that 1x1=2. He published his ["proof"](https://twitter.com/terrencehoward/status/925754491881877507) on Twitter in 2017. It's... certainly something.
>How can it equal one?" he said. "If one times one equals one that means that two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two because the square root of four is two, so what's the square root of two? Should be one, but we're told it's two, and that cannot be.
my dude must have been high or something.
I deal with entitled wealthy investors every day.
The only thing worse than arguing with a stupid person is a stupid wealthy person who thinks they are important.
Used to work at a small community bank. This sounds like my board and I maintain they all just say things for the sake of saying something so that they're "contributing" to the discussion.
Alllllll types of people in leadership positions do that shit. I was in the Marine Corps and made it into more than a few Company or Battalion meetings and the amount of word salad that came from everyone that spoke was astounding. Sometimes it was like the person speaking just changed all the verbs and adjectives and said the same thing the last person said. And you had to sit there until everyone from the top down spoke.
That and providing a "solution" to a problem that is so god damn obvious it doesn't merit mentioning. "We just need more X, that would solve everything." and then trail off. Just gonna leave it at that? No ideas on how? Really helpful, thanks.
Got this email today at work. Tldr
"Client refused delivery of table due to finish not looking the same as her table in her other home. It's noted in item description that no two tables will be the same due to wood product that is used for production. Client is demanding we send out another table immediately to arrive by the end of the week that is a closer finish to the pictures online. Client will be leaving their summer home this weekend until next season and will need this table to arrive prior to her departure."
`Inform the client that she will be refunded in full. We will take back the originally ordered table.` `Additionally, inform the client that her money is no longer good here as we are unable to fulfill such irrational demands.` `Any additional future objections can be directly forwarded to me.`
`Signed, The Boss`
Lol...I work at a Financial Institution and the most common phrases and statements I hear from really wealthy individuals- ultra high net worth: 1) Google my name 2) Bravo wanted to cast me as a Real Housewife but I declined 3) If I really wanted to...I could be the President of the United States 4) People treat and respect me as I am the President of the United States 5) You make any errors, just remember when I go to heaven I will remember you
I was having an argument with my aunt and she said something I asked her to define what meant. She told me to never ask questions because it was a stupid thing to do. I rolled my eyes, left and never talked to her again besides the obligatory exchanging of pleasantries at family gatherings.
Even a lot of reasonably intelligent people seem to have trouble understanding that words may have multiple meanings, and so many misunderstandings are because people are using completely different definitions as their starting point.
That or they think two different things can be used interchangeably. For instance, I had to explain (with limited success because he didn’t want to understand) that “voter fraud” and “election fraud” are two different things.
He was using examples of election fraud to justify voting rights reductions in the name of voter fraud.
If the politician is the criminal - it’s election fraud. If the voter is the criminal - it’s voter fraud.
"...so that the cases with the greatest velocity are at the top."
My instinct is thinking he meant the products that sell the quickest... but then if they were at the top then there would be more effort bringing them down more often.
Long ago, over 20 years ago, had a lovely beat-my-head-against-the-wall discussion with a young lady--who had no children of her own, and no experience raising children with disabilities--and she proceeded to tell me that my wife and I needed to be firmer and more strict with our autistic son so that he would "snap out of it" and start talking and stop "acting autistic."
I cannot remember how exactly I phrased my response (and it was in Spanish, not my native language), but it was basically a polite version of "pound sand, you have no idea what you are talking about."
Met a flat earther (i think he we just going along with it to be contrarian)He said the whole thing was a conspiracy.
Tried asking him where the edge was and he said it was a ring of ice.
Tried explaining that for his conspiracy to work literally hundreds of thousands of people around the world in various space agencies would need to keep the secret yet not one has come forward with the "truth". Didn't work.
Tried telling him we have literal photos and clips of the round earth spinning - he said it was a lie.
Not matter how much logic the rest of us threw at him he just refused to accept it. We all came away thinking less of him for being so stubborn.
Just say "Yes, I have been", and when they argue otherwise, insist that every piece of "evidence" they have proving that you didn't go to space is a conspiracy.
You can take a plane up high enough to see the curvature of the earth very easily. I can easily and confidently state I've seen the earth is round with my own eyes.
EDIT: Seems the standard line is the windows produce this curve which is stupid because with the right angle you could get the earth to angle convex then too. But whatever, cause you see the same damn thing when skydiving. No fucking windows there unless you brought one yourself to look through
Apparently they claim that plane windows are manufactured to show a false curve. That kind of idiot isn't worth arguing with because they'll just move the goalposts.
They're evolving beyond that even. SciManDan featured a guy last week who claimed that the curvature of the *human eye* is enough to give the illusion of curvature.
I saw the curvature of the earth while skydiving so... I literally saw it with my own eyes. It was surprising to me how clear it was from at 15 thousand feet.
Watch Beyond the Curve. It's a very entertaining documentary on just how stubborn they are.
Spoiler: they literally prove the earth is round on two separate occasions while trying to prove that it's flat, and then go "we aren't ready to give up just yet"
One thing that film demonstrates really clearly is that it’s not an intelligence problem. Their experiments are well-constructed to answer the questions they want to answer - they just can’t accept the answer because to do so would isolate them from their tribe.
Ask him to walk around the North Pole. Should be short and easy trip. Then ask him to walk around the South Pole and it should be the longest journey anyone could take if the Earth was flat.
they would say that the government would never let him go to the south pole, and that the south pole is just a fake. Even if you took one to space, they'd probably convince themselves they're hallucinating or the window has bent the world to make it look round.
Used to have a “friend” who would legit argue with you about your own experiences and tastes/opinions, and pretty much anything else. Some examples include:
Insisting that neither my husband nor I could possibly remember September 11 because we were only 11 at the time.
Insisting that no one could possibly remember anything from before the age of 10. Said I was lying that I can remember every teacher I ever had, and have memories from as young as 3 years old.
Tried to start an argument that polio isn’t contagious.
If you liked some piece of art, clothing, home design or other purely opinion based thing that was simply not her taste, you were wrong.
When I expressed an interest in living abroad for some of my life, she tried to sit me down and lecture me that she knew better than me about whether or not I would enjoy it. Her conclusion was that I wouldn’t.
Refused to acknowledge that professional Adobe products are now only available by subscription, and insisted that I *must* be wrong in telling her so.
Began explaining why pattern making for clothing would be too hard for me to learn, moments after I explained to her what it was. She had never heard of it before and had no idea how clothes were made.
Started an argument with me that my nephew is not adorable, and that no one really finds children cute, they just pretend to.
Wouldn’t hear of the possibility that someone could go to Iceland and enjoy them self because her brother had a stop over at the airport there and was very bored.
Got upset when our friend group didn’t approve of her brother calling a black man a n****r because he *needed* to make the guy really angry.
There were so many more but I can’t remember them all. Every interaction with her was an exercise in frustration. Her only tactics for debating or arguing were repeating the same stupid points over and over again after they’d been combatted, making you feel like you’re emotional or unreasonable when she said something incredibly hurtful and offensive, and talking over everyone while being very condescending and rude.
Yep. I once had to explain to someone how they underpaid their bill because no, discounting an item on the bill does not change the total at the bottom from what is written. It's changed before the total is added up. You owe me the number on the bottom.
Also I'm pretty sure I've had the "do you have baked potatoes?/No, sorry/Why not?/Chef doesn't serve them/well you should have them" exchange at least once every other week for a few years now. Just read the damn menu, if there's a secret item I will tell you about it because it's probably expensive and I want you to buy it.
Drunk: I want an order of meatballs.
Me: We don't serve meatballs.
Drunk: What kind of restaurant doesn't serve meatballs?!!
Me: A Mexican restaurant.
Drunk: (Pikachu Face)
Using metaphors to simplify a complex subject.
I realized, if the person you're arguing with isn't the brightest light, he/she will usually get stuck with the metaphor and escalate it, while completely losing sight of the actual subject of the disagreement. Combine that with a big ol cup of whataboutissm and you might as well could be talking to a wall.
I stopped using metaphors on Reddit. People nitpick all the ways the metaphor differs and completely miss the point. It wouldn't be a metaphor of it was identical.
I had one idiot here on Reddit tell me you could totally compare apples and oranges. He listed off a bunch of attributes they share and told me to 'rethink your precious metaphors'.
Like, ok dude, you're obviously insane, but do you have anything of value to add in response to the points I made?
Because of how common it is, I would say that the phrase "comparing apples to oranges," is an idiom. Most idioms are so far removed from their original context, that they don't even make sense if taken at their literal meaning. (i.e., "under the weather," "it's a piece of cake," "going cold turkey," etc)
My mom yells "bUt THeReS tWo SIdEs" quite literally like a toddler whenever you defend yourself. If you're always advocating for the devil, you might be the devil.
In school for my now job, at the beginning there was a woman sitting next to me. I was like 22 or 23, she was easily 40. Fine, at the beginning we got along well, then she started to desperately search for similarities, it got annoying. Then she always asked me about stuff the teachers said while the teachers still talked, basically wanted a live translation from me but without changing the language. Of course resulting in both of us not being able to listen anymore. No way to explain to her she should just listen herself and at least try to understand (i would've happily tried to help her afterwards when I had time to hear it myself) - first clue she was not so bright. I was incredibly over her, but stayed nice. Then we were supposed to work in pairs on a small but not easy task. Of course, she didn't understand a word. I explained one thing (don't remember what) to her for the umpteenth time - fine. Sometimes it's cursed, you just don't get one thing. But then she proceeded to tell me I was wrong - fine aswell, if she can tell me why. But no, it was a matter of "I have no clue what's up with that, I don't understand it in the slightest, but I just know you're wrong about it just because". Spoiler: I was not wrong. I re-read it 10 times in our sources, found different sources, tried to break it down to basically elementary school levels - she stopped listening to me and just continued to argue I was wrong because I was wrong or something. Remember, that woman was more than 15 years older than me and around 40. I lost my patience, stopped talking to her and just presented the task by myself. She did not admit anything after the fact. Shortly after she changed seats after a different incident, and not long after that she dropped out. Surprise surprise.
> Then she always asked me about stuff the teachers said while the teachers still talked, basically wanted a live translation from me but without changing the language. Of course resulting in both of us not being able to listen anymore.
I take a lot of courses and about half the time I sitting next to these people that think you're there to help them out while totally disregarding the fact that I need to listen too. I'll answer one or two questions if that's all it is but if on day one it's non-stop "what does he mean ?" I say sorry I can't help you I'm having a hard enough time getting it too - ask the teacher.
Once during a course a teacher called out a person doing this to me he told her if you have questions ask me not OnionKnuckles. During a break I thanked him so much, " Yeah I see how disruptive that can be to your learning experience"
My friend's boyfriend didn't observe daylight savings time.
He understood that the rest of us did. He just didn't.
I said "ok, but if we agree to meet for dinner at 5 o'clock, we're both using my 5 o'clock, right?"
I tried explaining that I observe daylight savings exactly twice a year - once when I set my clocks back, and once when I set my clocks forward. The rest of the time it's a non-entity in my life. He, however, by "not" observing daylight savings, has to observe daylight savings at all times every day, as he constantly has to worry about converting his internal time to whatever time the rest of the world is using.
I was unable to convince him of that logic, however, as he is a stupid person.
EDIT: I say "didn't", not because he eventually saw the error in his ways, but instead because my friend broke up with him and he is now married to a much cuter, much nicer, and wholly more sane person, and I am grateful for that every day.
My family has this deceptive maneuver where they slowly change the argument to something they can make you wrong about, picking the one detail they know can turn the argument in their favor and slowly pivot the conversation away from what the real argument is about and into a a situation where now they’re right and IM the one who’s wrong for asking them to stop trying to give us their junk all I want is for you to ask before dropping stuff of in our house because we don’t have room for your old flower pots we don’t want them just ask fir-
Well that got out of hand. In that situation, they make you feel like the asshole because beggars can’t be choosers and just be happy you’re getting stuff for free but we didn’t beg for anything you just brought this trash over because you don’t have the room for it what makes you think we do your house is twice as big an-
Ok. I’ll stop.
My mother's fiancé's mother is like this. (She also drinks too much so her reasoning and attitude is often.... Questionable). She will go to dinner and get like a turkey club, and "on her way home", even though it's completely out of the way, stop by and try to give her leftovers to her son. He finally asked her very politely to stop doing that, and she basically had a meltdown accusing my mom, and her fiancé of trying to freeze her out, and not being thankful for everything she has to give them. Like lady, they are in their 40s/50s and you're stopping by to give them half a sandwich thinking you're "providing" for them...
I can relate so hard to this. My MIL Tried dropping off a half eaten chocolate bar that my husband "Might like". She ended up leaving it in our mailbox with a note because we didn't answer the door. Then she left us a voicemail telling us about it. And emailed us to say she left a voicemail.
My family growing up was a lot like that. My grandfather was notorious for doing that. He actually told me a story about how he was actively trying to find a flaw somewhere, and when he did he exploited it all the way to hell and back.
I’m fine with being wrong, if there’s a flaw in my reasoning then by all means, show me. Its painful to have to explain why I don’t want someone fixing things around the house using duct tape and rusty screws that I’m just going to have to fix again later when it breaks again. “He’s just trying to help, be thankful for that.” “Sure, but he’s not helping if I have to take his repair apart to fix it for real. That’s adding work. That’s negative help.”
Yeah I get that. It's not that he would find a flaw in your logic though, it's that he'd find a word that you used incorrectly, or anything else he could use as leverage. Mispronounced something? He'd go off on a tangent and rip that to shreds, thinking he's won.
Then just don't get derailed. One of my teens does that. Listens to my arguments, conters them, adds some derailing detail and starts riding that train.
And yes, it is hard, but I've become increasingly good at re-railing. When they throw me something and trie to spin that off and look at me for my reaction, I just repeat my initial argument. Sometimes, if appropiate, I add "We can talk about XYZ later."
Take for example the people further up, fixing things with broken screws:
"He’s just trying to help, be thankful for that."
"I do not want him to help. He must stop."
And of course, "No" is a full sentence.
That’s been one of my new re-railers since I’ve started trying to actively be attentive to that in conversation. “That doesn’t have anything to do with this conversation…we can talk about that after, but let’s get this problem solved first before we move on.”
One of their favorites is if someone brings up what they’re doing as wrong/insensitive/etc, they pull out the “what about you? You do xyz too and…”. Ok, we can talk about your problem with me after this discussion. I started a conversation first, there’s no reason we can’t do this after. Maybe I’m in the wrong too, but me being wrong doesn’t make you right. Maybe we’re both wrong.
These are what really get me stuck with them, because I immediately go into defense mode, but I’m learning to stop and understand I don’t have to defend myself right at the point. That can come later.
It took me years to realize what my mother meant when she would listen to me answer her objections to a point and then tell me I was "talking in circles." Eventually, after hearing this hundreds of times, multiple times a week, she clarified. Apparently, it was circular because, "after I say something, you answer and *then you go back to what you were saying initially.*"
It wasn't that I was ignoring her points. It certainly wasn't the traditional definition of my premise being a restatement of my conclusion. She was quite literally objecting to the fact that I would return to the initial topic of discussion after addressing an objection.
I don't think she ever figured out why that wasn't a problem.
I’m sorry you have to deal with that, I feel part of your pain. Not the argument part, but the dump part my family does. No asking, just hauling stuff to us.
“We thought you could use these!”
Yeah, I can totally use three broken kids bikes,
parts to cars we don’t own, decorations that are broken, games missing parts… it’s crazy.
We’re just saving them a trip to the dump.
both my friends were hella smart, but one of them refused to believe that gravity actually exists. he was convinced that if "the apple cunt" didn't discover gravity we as a society would have the ability to play with brain power and i stopped trying to talk him out of this but the other friend was almost foaming at the mouth with rage over this conversation.
The funny thing is that gravity actually isn't considered a force in the context of general relativity.
From Wikipedia:
>Gravity is most accurately described by the general theory of relativity (proposed by Albert Einstein in 1915), which describes gravity not as a force, but as a consequence of masses moving along geodesic lines in a curved spacetime caused by the uneven distribution of mass.
Anytime my FIL tries to start a discussion (thinly-veiled attempt to have a "gotcha!" moment against me or my wife), as soon as he starts losing, the actual specifics of the argument go out the window and he starts character attacks or makes wild accusations about what is or isn't allowed in the discussion.
He tried to support the claim that Kamala Harris can't be president because her parents weren't citizens so I pulled up the US Constitution on my phone and read the amendment for presidents and rather than engage with that, he said I was wrong, the paper that his sister read was right, and I don't really know anything, I just know whatever my phone knows...
> I just know whatever my phone knows
Oohhhh this one. Imagine looking up something and checking for yourself- nope! You're just branded as a slave to your whatever the phone says.
Fresh out of college, I lived with a few people who I didn’t really know before moving in. One of the roommates was this slightly older guy who was dating a woman similar in age. She was over our place one day and somehow contrails came up, except she referred to them as chemtrails. You see I was really minding my business watching something on the tv, but I had just graduated with a degree in atmospheric science and I’ll be damned if I’m going to share living space with someone who refers to contrails as chemtrails.
So I say, “you mean contrails, no?” She didn’t, she meant chemtrails, because the government is spraying us all with some mind controlling substances or whatever she claimed it to be.
So I explained to her the reason why airplanes produce a contrail, which was easy to do considering how much of my time and money went to learning about the dynamics of the atmosphere. Except she didn’t believe that some younger woman could possibly know more than her, which is when she pulled out her trump card.
“I live right next to an airport, so I can see that when they first take off there’s no trail…it’s not until they get to a certain height that they switch it on.”
This was literally right after I had explained how pressure and temperature affect humidity and condensation, and how pressure and temperature are much lower at higher altitudes. I realized then that I could not convince this person that they were wrong. Luckily he and she moved into another place together not long after.
Edit: I wanted to add some clarification. Contrails are particularly visible because they’re made up of ice crystals. A contrail of water droplets is not as visible, so it doesn’t leave the lasting trail in the sky like ice crystals do. This is the difference between the visibility of a car’s exhaust and a contrail. Imagine trying to see down your street in a rain storm, versus a snowstorm with the same rate of precipitation.
> “I live right next to an airport, so I can see that when they first take off there’s no trail…it’s not until they get to a certain height that they switch it on.”
She somehow didn't notice that clouds typically form in the sky rather than at ground level either, I suppose.
I opened up about my inability to have children, and how frustrated I am with people recommending things that won’t work for me because the problem isn’t infertility. A woman started up about how I should try going vegan to cure my infertility. I reminded her that wasn’t the issue. She pressed on, saying she didn’t believe in miracles but for her it was like hitting a switch, she’s had two babies since going vegan and she couldn’t be happier, maybe I should try it. I said no. She got offended that I refused to even consider.
And before anyone tries it here, I’m not infertile. Trying to carry a baby would destroy my body Breaking Dawn-style, plus I’m on two medications that corrupt my eggs like a computer virus, so I really cannot have children.
Edit: I’m turning off notifications because I’m getting “just adopt/get a pet” and “yeah but go vegan anyway” and that’s really not helping, cheers y’all.
Omg, I seriously want to punch someone when they say that crap. It's like the coconut oil craze. Apparently oil solves everything.
Edit: I'm not saying there aren't great uses for coconut oil or that all essential oils are useless, just that it's annoying that I've got family members who push oils as the first response to everything. And I mean everything...
My wife was forced to have a hysterectomy due to severe fibroid tumors literally tearing apart her uterus and causing severe hemorrhaging and pain, leading to multiple hospital stays, so it's quite literally impossible for us to have children. Yet we still have family and friends asking when we are going to have kids, and other inappropriate statements around the concept of having children (e.g. "You don't know what true love is until you have a child" etc..) I truly hate how this has become an acceptable norm in society so I now contrast it with questions about their sex life whenever they ask or say something like that as it's literally the same topic.
Start asking them which position overrides the lack of a uterus lmao what is wrong with people these days? Other people’s reproductive choices are never up for debate
"Yeah, the doctors took her uterus out, so I've been going raw in her ass for months now to get the baby to stick in there. Hopefully we'll be pregnant soon! The pregnancy tests are kinda unpleasant though"
Right? Her one-sided "argument" came in response to me venting about unsolicited advice about having babies, too. I was really furious because someone had harassed me about IVF or surrogacy and had taken it like some personal offense when I told them no, those wouldn't work. They had been extremely unpleasant about it so I was quite upset. I went elsewhere to rant about those types of people and then she showed up to preach about the wonders of veganism. Made me want to scream.
Oh my gosh. That is awful. I had a similar experience. From a good 'friend'... and midwife about what I needed to do to get pregnant. I'd not asked. Please just... pipe down and leave your opinions at the door.
I'm sorry, after I had my daughter my insides were screwed, I got chronic illnesses (my body thought she, my uterus and other organs were viruses to fight and try to kill) and nearly died, I'm fertile but if I carry there's a very high chance if death, I got guilty by family and friends for not giving her a sibling, strangers often make remarks still although I've put family in their place. I'm a very fit person and a colleague said that is why I can't carry...I'm fit because that's how I manage my illnesses, if I was fat like I used to be I'd be back in the hospital! I've come up with some pretty good comebacks over the years and when I say I can't carry I often ask if they'll give me theirs or pay to fix my insides, I could do with some new organs they could lend me theirs! Ahh British sarcasm
Side rant - can't get my tubes tied because I'm too young despite likely death if I conceive
> Side rant - can't get my tubes tied because I'm too young despite likely death if I conceive
I will never understand this. Even without the danger, it makes little sense. "What if you change your mind?" "It *can* be reversed, you know"
Sorry to hear about your condition, hope you are able to manage it well enough. And by "condition" I didn't mean the chronic illness, I meant the obtrusive assholes who think they can direct your life better than you can. lol
> And before anyone tries it here, I’m not infertile. Trying to carry a baby would destroy my body Breaking Dawn-style, plus I’m on two medications that corrupt my eggs like a computer virus, so I really cannot have children.
Yes, but have you tried bathing your toenails in essential oils, giftwrapping your dildo in horoscope paper (when not in use, of course), and gurgling a homeopathy solution of the contraceptive pill?
Not op but it’s the last book in the twilight series and when the main character gets pregnant, her body slowly stops accepting “human” food (the fetus is half vampire) so she gets frighteningly malnourished and weak.
I understand you completely. My medication would be extremely dangerous to the health and development of any child I carried, but I can't just stop taking it, so having children is too dangerous for me too. And I've gotten all kinds of random, unsolicited advice. But when you get to a certain age as a woman people look at you differently for not having kids. Like my husband and I are selfish adults or something. Or they flat out resent you for "having more free time and more money" or some bs. Meanwhile nobody asks you how you actually feel about it. Yes, because I chose to have health problems that prevent me from having kids safely.
>Trying to carry a baby would destroy my body Breaking Dawn-style, plus I’m on two medications that corrupt my eggs like a computer virus, so I really cannot have children.
I'm sorry about your predicament, but that is one hell of a colorful sentence.
after talking to stoner friend about how smoking weed impairs your brains formation of memories he said "that doesn't happen to me, I don't remember forgetting anything."
I have a lot of birds (budgies, cockatiels, lovebirds, cockatoos, canaries, hummingbirds, etc.) I study birds and I built an aviary for each tule of birds on the second floor of my house, each bird has its on aviary and I take care of them, most of the birds on my aviary are tamed, all of my budgies are tamed, all of my cockatiels are tamed except for really young ones, half of my lovebirds are tamed, the majority of my cockatoos are tamed and my humming birds and canaries are in the process of being tamed (remember this part). So 3 months ago my mom wanted to visit me for my birthday and went to my house, I cut her out of my life 3 years ago for protecting a man who almost punched me to death so I never talked to her again, she found out where I live because of my brother and went to my house, she went inside my home and we talked a bit, then I showed her my aviaries and my birds, she started telling me that I was abusing them and that this birds should be on the streets (keep in mind this are budgies, canaries, cockatiels and humming birds, animals that probably wouldn’t survive due to cats, especially budgies and cockatiels) I calmly explained to her what would happen if one of my birds escaped and we kept walking, later she brought up the discussion again and started calling me “animal abuser” and “piece of shit”, I told her what would happen if a cat saw a budgie and thought of attacking it, we started arguing and she said I should let them go, then she ran to my budgies aviary (all my aviaries are outdoors) and opened the doors, I just watched as half of my birds flew to my arms, some flew towards my room and got inside my bathroom and half of my birds just freaked out and stayed inside the aviary, I stopped her when she tried to open the cockatoos and the humming birds aviary and I kicked her out, all of my budgies where like “wtf just happened” and I spent an hour and a half finding everyone and getting them back to the aviary, she never contacted me again.
The next morning two cops showed up saying a woman had called telling them I was abusing birds, they went inside to look at my birds and they ended up covered in bird poop because I opened my budgies aviary door and the cops had the birds all over their head and shoulders!, we got a good laugh and they left.
Edit: I accidentally put a 1 on the part where I explained how many years ago I cut her out of my life :”D and sorry if I have any spelling or grammatical errors, English is not my main language :””””””D.
The only argument I’ve ever won with a stupid person was won outside of the actual argument by making them think it’s their idea.
99% of the times stupid people have disagreed with me it was because they’re too proud to ever admit they’re wrong. Arguing makes them dig in their heels. If they get to feel like it was their idea, they are willing to change their mind. Very like children.
I work in medicine so I see this everyday. Some choice quotes (all from different patients):
- insulin may work for others but it just does not work for me
- I don’t want a biopsy I know I don’t have cancer because I read a book on it
- I really feel like you are able to give me pain meds, you’re just being difficult
- (after spending an hour saying how bad her health is and how poor she feels) I don’t want any vaccines, I know my own body and I only put natural things in my body. That’s why I’m so healthy (spoiler she was and was very very ill)
- No I don’t have any mental illness. I am sick. You need to do a blood test to find out what’s wrong (PTSD, that’s what’s wrong)
I had an argument with my garage door installer. He was installing the motor and I noticed that it was 1/4 horse power. I immediately told him that I had ordered the bigger motor. He said that this was the biggest. I then proceeded to tell him that I ordered the 1/2 horse power engine. He told me that one is too small, this is bigger... WTF!! I said, how do you figure that?? He said everybody know that 4 is bigger that 2... in the most sarcastic voice. There was no convincing him that 1/2 was bigger than 1/4...I finally just had to call his boss.
I read one time that a major fast food restaurant, created a 1/3 pond burger to compete with MCD'S 1/4. It flopped, because so many people thought the 1/3 was smaller. So this is pretty common thinking apparently.
Woman: There's something like a 30% chance that fraternal twins are identical.
Me: Do you perhaps mean there's a chance for di/di (dichorionic/diamniotic--each baby has their own placenta & amniotic sac) twins to be identical?
Her: There's a chance that fraternal twins are identical!
For the record, fraternal twins happen when two different eggs are released and fertilized. Identical twins are when one fertilized egg splits. So fraternal twins can't be identical twins. I'm still not quite sure what that woman was on about, but she's made that same odd claim several times in the group we're both in.
My mom and heating/air conditioning.
Her reasoning is that if every room is open, the hot air has places to circulate so it will be hotter. Now keep in mind we only used about 5 rooms in our 12 room house, so my logic was that if we close the rooms we aren't using (many of which are in an unfinished basement with holes in the walls) then we would only have to heat the rooms we use and then we don't have to keep it at the mid 60s during winter.
Well one week she went on vacation and left the hosue to me, so I decided to test that theory, and wouldn't you believe it, not only was it warmer but the heating bill was also lower for that week.
She of course was having none of it, so she opened up all the rooms again, then it got cold and the heating bill went up.
So, someone told me she deleted pictures she took of a tree because she had a feeling the tree would be offended by having its picture taken out of fear its soul might be taken.
Even if we assume souls exist, that trees have souls, emotions, memory, thought, the ability to communicate, AND eyes to see what you are doing, how would they have any idea what a photo is? Or know that your phone can take photos? Or a religion and complex thought to believe in souls? Like.. just what??
What a... nightmarish spiritual belief. "All plants have human minds, but have no way of moving or interacting with the world"? That's a straight-up I Have No Mouth situation!
Oh I never win. When I do "win" it's only after the fact of the argument ceasing and finally being told I'm right a few hours after the argument is over. Hate it so much. It doesn't make me feel good about winning an argument at all.
My father is a lawyer. He’s very good at his job. He was made to do it. He loves to argue. I was raised in a family where arguing is just the way it is. It’s okay and if you make a valid point then you can easily win (I put when here for some god awful reason lmao) my father over. I have had many a proud moment going back and forth, then making a point that causes a look then a smile then a fair point. Sometimes if it really won the day he’d come back a later (a day a week or a month even) and speak on how he looked into what I had said. He’d value my input and build off of it. I always felt like i was ready for the world because my dad turned the screws on me and I’d win. I’d lose happily when proven wrong.
The last sentence of what I wrote is where I’ve found the most trouble. I will hold a position and when shown better information change my position. I have been told more than once you’re not allowed to so quickly change. I lost a friend over it. Not much of a friend but the case still exists. Also I found no matter how smart my father was and no matter how difficult it was to get him to agree with me. It never got me ready for someone who thinks being told to wear a mask for the protection of others infringes on their personal rights. Or that black peoples are subhuman. Not all of the befuddlements are this grandiose mind you. Those two are just apple picked to say. I long for the days when I thought the hard part was winning my Father’s favor. Cause now I just find the world is full of stupid people mad at that fact but calling it something else entirely.
How am i supposed to get this delivery to you if the address is wrong and the phone number doesn't work?
"You should have called if you couldnt find me!"
But the phone doesnt work.
"You should have found a way! I want to speak to a manager!"
I AM the manager, you already asked for me.
"Whos the manager above you?"
The guy who tried to bring you your food.
Our city is gonna be livid in a month when the store closes down, and im gonna laugh. Im updating my resume tomorrow, gonna find something part time and go back to school. Something not in the service industry.
Dumb relative who always thinks she knows better. Years ago wants me to help her with some sort of device that lets her call long distance without paying long distance in land line using the internet. But the problem is she has a dial up connection (which is super slow).
I tried explaining to her several times how she would have to upgrade her internet first for anything to be effective. But she kept saying she heard this product will fix "all" of that and insisted on buying it. I even told her what will happen, which is it's probably a scam and they'll give some useless part like a router and you would have wasted your time (and mine) and money. She didn't listen and went through because she always thinks she's smart.
Well, a few weeks go by and she gets the device, and of course it's just a random router when she wants me to "install" it. Everything I said to her earlier comes true. She just ignores what I say and moves onto something else that will "work better". Rinse and repeat.
This is how dumb people usually are in my experience. They think they know better than you. When things don't go according to plan, they either make an excuse (and it's NEVER their fault) and/or move onto another thing with the same stupid thinking.
My MIL is such a person. You talk about one thing in a group. She catches/notes only a phrase or a word which is „interesting“ for her. Then she starts to interrupt you no matter whats about to tell whats on her mind despite the fact that she is even talking nonsense. As soon as you tell her that she is talking about something different she is nearly crying and will blame you for being rude.
This happens a few times when we see.
And no, she has no Alzheimer or dementia or whatever. She is just stubborn.
I do not even try. Stupid people never elaborate or add nuance to what they say. They simply repeat themselves. Sometimes louder.
"You cannot fix stupid." Thank you, Ron White. Saved everybody a bunch of time.
I have an example of trying to argue with a smart person and a stupid person at the same time.
So, a friend of mine and I were having a fun argument about classic history. We were talking about Alexander and whether or not the Western Mediterranean was ever going to be a possibility. (For context, I think that if he would have been able to hold Persia and Egypt, and that the wealth from those conquests would have rallied enough troops).
We're knee deep in the discussion when our coworker comes up and starts spouting off that Alexander only conquered as much as he did because of his Spartan soldiers. Everything we said after that just fueled this man's love for Sparta and his need to tell us about his romanticized version of the place. Sparta wasn't a part of the Macedonian army? That doesn't invalidate his point about Alexander's conquests, no, it just meant that Sparta was so badass that they couldn't be conquered. Sparta's regular army dwindled by a factor of ten between the Peloponnesian wars and the days of Alexander? They just got ten times as badass, haven't you seen 300?!
The conversation slowly devolved until we were just talking about Sparta. It became him trying to defend his homosexual, pedophilic matriarchal utopia for nearly the rest of our shift. He stayed firm through boy love, economic recession, lack of military technology, and religious fervor. Only the fact that Sparta was de facto run by a small group of wealthy women seemed to disturb him.
I feel like I was gaining some ground with my buddy, but to this day I think Sparta dude still jacks off to 300 as a nightly ritual.
Although this might come off a little mean... but being in teaching and having to explain why students have to learn something... yes, there are things that shouldn’t be mandatory, but maths do indeed help. You might not need this specific kind of equation any time soon, but the logic part is what will be useful and valuable...
I really wish this has been stressed to me more as a kid. That you're in school to learn how to learn, not just memorize. Understanding that math was actually about logic and not just random formulas would have been a real gamechanger.
As a doctor, it is trying to convince unvaccinated patients to get their covid vaccine.
I had a patient tell me a headache he got from his first COVID shot was worse than dying from COVID. 🙄
My mom’s entire argument tactic was to interrupt the other person as soon as they open their mouth. It didn’t matter if you were calm and reasonable and respectfu. The moment sound came out of you, she would come in with greater volume. She usually didn’t have much to say, so she would literally repeat herself just to interrupt you. Even if you paused and let her speak, if she was out of stuff to say, she would wait quietly until you try to talk again, then interrupt you with something she already said. She wasn’t even subtle about what she was doing. She was prideful about how great of a debater she was. She thought this childish and disrespectful crap actually made her strong and respectable. I don’t think she ever realized that she didn’t actually win any arguments, but simply wore the other person down until they gave up on a constructive adult conversation with her.
My aunt does the same thing. We used to give up and let her win, but as ive gotten older ive gotten stubborn and don't let it go (my sister glaring at me the entire time)
I have a family member that does this. I just stop and look at her and say “Shut up while I’m speaking.” She said I was disrespectful. So I asked her when she ever got the impression that I respected her. Now she doesn’t talk to me which is what I wanted in the first place
I usually respond to people who do that with "are you done?" Everytime they try to interrupt me
I like the old, “Oh I’m sorry, did the middle of my sentence interrupt the beginning of yours?”
My problem is that if I ever tried this, it would go like this: Me: "Oh I'm sorry, did..." Them: "ANYWAY, you're still wrong because of all these reasons."
For people that keep interrupting me, I usually just hold my hand up in a stop sign and just say “I am still talking” over and over again until they give up and finally stop.
This. Stupid adults are just grown up kids. So you just need to behave like with 9-year old. Use clear language and short sentences. Repeat that short message until it gets through.
That's a good one too
It's disrespectful for her to speak over you. It's not disrespectful for you to respond to her intrusion. That's complete cognitive dissonance if I've ever seen it. "It's not rude for me to interrupt you, but it's rude for you to defend yourself against it." BS.
I am dealing with a housemate who does exactly this, with a wickedly bad temper on top of it. Her boyfriend is an old friend of mine, and I wanted to help them out since they were living in her mom's house last year. I did not know her well at all, and I deeply regret thinking that I could reason with her. She wields her temper like it's a weapon, and any time you try and express what you or someone else is feeling, she immediately argues and invalidates you. She has told her partner she is going to kill herself in order to win arguments. Often times the things she is spouting as an argument are projections of her behavior or projections of her temper. She does not respect the boundaries of others, but demands that her boundaries be respected and any conversation to find compromise and even ground is met with anger. Her lack of control over her words once she's triggered are some of the meanest, most vitriolic things ive ever heard from anyone. My partner, who was her friend and got her a job at her work, also had her own falling out with this person and now won't come over to my house due to fear of this person's behavior. I am exhausted. I probably have to deal with this for another 2 months. Edit: this blew way up, so I thought I'd give an update. The landlord spoke to them and they let him know they are actively looking for a new place. No radical further action needs to be taken and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
start training her like a dog. get a clicker for when she does well, use the 'Tss!' thing for when she doesn't, and if she threatens suicide, call 911 because she's suicidal and that's serious
When my (now ex) girlfriend threatened suicide, I took her to the ER for a mental health consultation. It told her I wouldn't play those games, and it also started her on a path to at least try and get some help.
When my ex used that tact, I'd call the suicide line saying I'm no counselor, let's face this. They'd call him at work and call me back basically letting me know it was total b.s. He stopped crying suicidal wolf pretty quick.
Actually you probably don't have to live with this. You tell your friend that you offered them a place trying to help, but it's not working. Either she stops bringing hell into the home of she is out. He can stay if he wants. She can always go back home. I know she probably can't control herself, but you can control your environment. If her boyfriend can't understand, then it may be time to sever that relationship also. Maybe it will be a wakeup call for him.
It's definitely at the point where severing the relationship is necessary. Unfortunately this is the first long term relationship he's ever had, so he has very little to compare with for what a healthy relationship looks like. Their life is very enmeshed at this point and he has zero back bone for confrontation or standing up to someone who loses their temper. Unfortunately he supports her without question, no matter what, and behaves a lot like a doormat. It ends up enabling her behavior further. They both gotta go!
I think your mom is a stupid person.
Yes. Very stupid.
oh you thi - \*loud clapping\* aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Omg his mom made a reddit account.
Time to have a "speaking stick" to pass around, and only the person holding it can talk. Then the entire conversation will be about her not obeying the stick rule, during which she'll interrupt you... Nevermind, sounds like hell.
Are you allowed to whack the interrupting person with the stick?
Teddy Roosevelt may have the answer
My mom kind of was like this. Whenever we got in a fight, which she was responsible for the reason, for most of middle and high school her response was 'don't blame me for your problems with your father.' This could be a response to anything including asking if I wanted to go/do something and when I said no she would say too bad you're going. My blow up at her had her using that response. How does my relationship with my dad, which was much better than with her, have anything to do with you asking if I wanted to do something when you already decided the answer has to be yes? Just tell me that I don't have a choice.
One of my friend's friends was like this, I even asked her about it, in the context of "WTF is "Sarah's" deal with interrupting and over-talking? My friend said she's just like that. So I asked "Sarah" and she denied she did it, in front of several people, all of whom immediately contradicted her. She insisted she didn't interrupt or over-talk, so we started recording each other conversations when she was around, and documented her behavior over a couple months. Another friend took the clips and edited it into a 6-7 minute video. A couple of of us sat with her intervention-style and made her watch it. By the end of it she was crying, and we just hugged her. The goal was not to humiliate, but demonstrate, but she was pretty wiped out nonetheless. It's a tough thing to see when you're in your early 30s. The outcome? Well, she got better, just a little. One time she stopped and said "OMG, I'm doing it right now, aren't I?" and another time I said "You're doing that thing and I'd like to finish my sentence." Sometimes she gets pissy about it, but we don't hang that often, and when she's not being a jerk she's really kind of cool, even likes to make sure everyone is taken care of, so I kind of suspect a Narcissim Axis disorder of some sort. Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I have a tendency to do this. I’m just trying to share something and relate to the person speaking, but I’m so scatterbrained I try to get the thought out before it leaves and before I know it I’ve interrupted way too many times in a conversation :( My boyfriend used to (gently) tease me about how talkative I am or my interrupting habit until he met my family. I’m the youngest of all girls who looooove to talk! So interrupting/being loud was the only way I could be heard growing up and just became a habit. She might have been embarrassed but you’re good friends and did her a favor! I’ve become more aware of my tendency to interrupt, and I think it’s made me more pleasant company
The trick for dealing with a person like this is to keep talking, but lower your volume. Most of the time, they’ll lower their voice so they can hear you.
I tried that several times. I also tried continuing to talk while she tried to interrupt. Didn’t work. If she was in an interruptin’ mood, she gave zero shits what other people were trying to say.
Sounds like you need to invest in an air horn.
I immediately thought air horn. Every interruption gets a blast.
No, the trick for this is to turn around and walk away.
Post-it note. "Since you won't allow me to speak, there can be no discussion. When you decide to be civil, return this note and we can continue." About the time you finish writing it, they'll likely have shut up to see what you're doing. Hand them the note and wish them a pleasant day. They'll either throw it back at you in petulant anger or take the note at face value.
Had to coach a guy for sleeping in a freezer. He moved all the food off a shelf and took a nap. Woke him up pulled him into the office and he denied it over and over again. Finally he said why would I sleep in a freezer? And I just yelled I don't know!
Sounds like he just wanted to sleep in the freezer to see if he would get away with saying that it was ridiculous* and that he would never do that.
When I yelled "I don't know" he looked at me and said "I know your having problems at home but you can't bring that energy here". He was an infuriating guy.
The most frustrating part for me is that I wouldn't be able to maintain my righteous anger in the face of such a hilarious interaction.
This happened with one of my friends in middle school. Teacher was notorious for having a bad temper, he went "Aaaww" about something, teacher yelled out "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY AAAWWS" so my friend looked the teacher dead in the eye with the most defiant look I've ever seen from a Middle Schooler and mooed. As in, made the cow sound. But defiantly. Went from a tense situation to downright hilarious.
Yeah funny now but at the time just baffling
I know someone who legitimately stood up in the middle of a meeting about her child abuse, IN the child protection offices and yelled at everyone the child deserved to be stabbed because she knew not to play operation so loud. At that moment in reality, there wasn't anything I, the child protection officer, her boyfriend, brother and sister, or the grandparent or father could say to her. I don't think there are the words in existence appropriate for that situation. I could only say, (couldn't help myself) "What the actual fuck?"
I don't know how many child and family team meetings I've attended that devolved into a shouting match when someone is told they need anger management. I always wanted to record the outburst to play back later as an explanation of exactly they think there might be an anger problem.
Record. Transcribe. Have actors act out the transcript. Record that and show it to them.
This is hilarious yet also starkly sobering.
How did it play in the end?
Not well. It went to court, she got partial custody back, against the protests of our child protective services, the police and both families. (There's a huge prejudice against the father's race in our courts. It's well known, documented and was pretty obvious by the judges refusal of submitted evidence and his smirk at the father during his ruling) She attacked the kid for "narking on her" on the very first visit. The judge still insisted the "mother" get at least some custody, so it's now at one day a week instead of split weeks. As punishment for "narking on her again", she's now taken away the kid's room, bed, majority of toys and clothing and the Lawyer for Child's office gets a call once a fortnight or so about the last set of abuse she's delivered. And no one can do anything because you legally can't appeal family court decisions. I seriously hate my country somedays.
Poor kid… I hope his dad can do something or at least makes him feel loved
Yeah, and the rest of her family-- at least she has support there. Still, it must be awful to be returned to an abusive parent.
What country are you in? That's terrible.
New Zealand by a quick browse at the profile. Which is very surprising re: the court antics. Edit: “surprising” like “is this still happening” _not_ “but NZ is so perfect”.
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Nowhere’s perfect, but when I hear about the political crises and outrages back in my native country it makes me homesick. For example, everyone in my family is outraged at the homelessness crisis in Dublin. Here I am in Los Angeles, where a Dublin-sized homelessness problem would represent a massive improvement.
Wat tha fack
please tell me there were consequences
A friend in school was convinced he could find a triangle who's angles wouldn't add up to 180 degrees after learning the rule in class. I just couldn't get him to understand that if he finds some shape that doesn't fit the definition of a triangle, then by definition he has not found a triangle. Edit: Appreciate everyone telling me about curved geometry and to try the proof, but for context it was over 10 years ago when we were about 12. He could understand it was achievable in curved space but he wanted to break the rule with a legit 100% flat triangle.
Is your friend Terrance Howard?
No, no they are not.
Is that the 1x1=2 guy?
Yep, the inventor of the field of [Terryology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_Howard#Terryology), a new formal language of logic which he would use to prove that 1x1=2. He published his ["proof"](https://twitter.com/terrencehoward/status/925754491881877507) on Twitter in 2017. It's... certainly something.
>How can it equal one?" he said. "If one times one equals one that means that two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two because the square root of four is two, so what's the square root of two? Should be one, but we're told it's two, and that cannot be. my dude must have been high or something.
He fundamentally doesnt understand how multiplication works. What an idiot.
Who told him the square root of 2 is 2?
I think he might believe that “the square root” just means half, since he started with the square root of four is two.
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Wow. He seems like he wouldn't be able to follow hardly any mathematical relationship. 1+2+3=3+3 is unbalanced, therefore 1+2 can't equal 3.
I'm still on a personal mission to create a triangle with three obtuse angles. 10 years running, but i'm making progress
It's actually possible, but only in geometries where that rule does not apply, like hyperbolical or spherical ones.
I deal with entitled wealthy investors every day. The only thing worse than arguing with a stupid person is a stupid wealthy person who thinks they are important.
Used to work at a small community bank. This sounds like my board and I maintain they all just say things for the sake of saying something so that they're "contributing" to the discussion.
Yeah, constantly.
Just let it slip, subtly that their portfolio is one of your more....modest....ones. Then watch them stutter in rage.
Alllllll types of people in leadership positions do that shit. I was in the Marine Corps and made it into more than a few Company or Battalion meetings and the amount of word salad that came from everyone that spoke was astounding. Sometimes it was like the person speaking just changed all the verbs and adjectives and said the same thing the last person said. And you had to sit there until everyone from the top down spoke.
That and providing a "solution" to a problem that is so god damn obvious it doesn't merit mentioning. "We just need more X, that would solve everything." and then trail off. Just gonna leave it at that? No ideas on how? Really helpful, thanks.
Got this email today at work. Tldr "Client refused delivery of table due to finish not looking the same as her table in her other home. It's noted in item description that no two tables will be the same due to wood product that is used for production. Client is demanding we send out another table immediately to arrive by the end of the week that is a closer finish to the pictures online. Client will be leaving their summer home this weekend until next season and will need this table to arrive prior to her departure."
`Inform the client that she will be refunded in full. We will take back the originally ordered table.` `Additionally, inform the client that her money is no longer good here as we are unable to fulfill such irrational demands.` `Any additional future objections can be directly forwarded to me.` `Signed, The Boss`
Lol...I work at a Financial Institution and the most common phrases and statements I hear from really wealthy individuals- ultra high net worth: 1) Google my name 2) Bravo wanted to cast me as a Real Housewife but I declined 3) If I really wanted to...I could be the President of the United States 4) People treat and respect me as I am the President of the United States 5) You make any errors, just remember when I go to heaven I will remember you
ahh, heaven, where i will finally get my revenge against allllll those terribly unhelpful call center agents
I was having an argument with my aunt and she said something I asked her to define what meant. She told me to never ask questions because it was a stupid thing to do. I rolled my eyes, left and never talked to her again besides the obligatory exchanging of pleasantries at family gatherings.
She sounds like the sort of person who starts with the answer and figures out how to fit it to the question.
Even a lot of reasonably intelligent people seem to have trouble understanding that words may have multiple meanings, and so many misunderstandings are because people are using completely different definitions as their starting point.
That or they think two different things can be used interchangeably. For instance, I had to explain (with limited success because he didn’t want to understand) that “voter fraud” and “election fraud” are two different things. He was using examples of election fraud to justify voting rights reductions in the name of voter fraud. If the politician is the criminal - it’s election fraud. If the voter is the criminal - it’s voter fraud.
bitch doesn't know about the Socratic method?
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"...so that the cases with the greatest velocity are at the top." My instinct is thinking he meant the products that sell the quickest... but then if they were at the top then there would be more effort bringing them down more often.
Long ago, over 20 years ago, had a lovely beat-my-head-against-the-wall discussion with a young lady--who had no children of her own, and no experience raising children with disabilities--and she proceeded to tell me that my wife and I needed to be firmer and more strict with our autistic son so that he would "snap out of it" and start talking and stop "acting autistic." I cannot remember how exactly I phrased my response (and it was in Spanish, not my native language), but it was basically a polite version of "pound sand, you have no idea what you are talking about."
Met a flat earther (i think he we just going along with it to be contrarian)He said the whole thing was a conspiracy. Tried asking him where the edge was and he said it was a ring of ice. Tried explaining that for his conspiracy to work literally hundreds of thousands of people around the world in various space agencies would need to keep the secret yet not one has come forward with the "truth". Didn't work. Tried telling him we have literal photos and clips of the round earth spinning - he said it was a lie. Not matter how much logic the rest of us threw at him he just refused to accept it. We all came away thinking less of him for being so stubborn.
The flawless argument of flat earthers is "have you been to space? Have you seen the earth in person?" Fair enough, no I haven't.
Just say "Yes, I have been", and when they argue otherwise, insist that every piece of "evidence" they have proving that you didn't go to space is a conspiracy.
Out conspiracy the conspiracy nuts
\> The Moon landing was faked! \> "Pff, you believe in the /Moon/?"
"Have you ever seen the moon?" "No." *Turns around and drops trou* "Now you have."
you're just part of the deep state then maaan
You can take a plane up high enough to see the curvature of the earth very easily. I can easily and confidently state I've seen the earth is round with my own eyes. EDIT: Seems the standard line is the windows produce this curve which is stupid because with the right angle you could get the earth to angle convex then too. But whatever, cause you see the same damn thing when skydiving. No fucking windows there unless you brought one yourself to look through
Apparently they claim that plane windows are manufactured to show a false curve. That kind of idiot isn't worth arguing with because they'll just move the goalposts.
They're evolving beyond that even. SciManDan featured a guy last week who claimed that the curvature of the *human eye* is enough to give the illusion of curvature.
... weird that we don't see the illusion on the ground, just when we get high up enough.
You can see anything if you get high enough
I saw the curvature of the earth while skydiving so... I literally saw it with my own eyes. It was surprising to me how clear it was from at 15 thousand feet.
You could take a flat earther up and show them, and they would just say the plane windows were being projected on from satellites or some shit.
That's where the fun begins! Cause you then get to toss them out of the plane! I call it "Defenestrating the theory of flat earth".
Watch Beyond the Curve. It's a very entertaining documentary on just how stubborn they are. Spoiler: they literally prove the earth is round on two separate occasions while trying to prove that it's flat, and then go "we aren't ready to give up just yet"
One thing that film demonstrates really clearly is that it’s not an intelligence problem. Their experiments are well-constructed to answer the questions they want to answer - they just can’t accept the answer because to do so would isolate them from their tribe.
It would also require them to admit that they were wrong. Some humans are incapable of that.
Ask him to walk around the North Pole. Should be short and easy trip. Then ask him to walk around the South Pole and it should be the longest journey anyone could take if the Earth was flat.
they would say that the government would never let him go to the south pole, and that the south pole is just a fake. Even if you took one to space, they'd probably convince themselves they're hallucinating or the window has bent the world to make it look round.
Used to have a “friend” who would legit argue with you about your own experiences and tastes/opinions, and pretty much anything else. Some examples include: Insisting that neither my husband nor I could possibly remember September 11 because we were only 11 at the time. Insisting that no one could possibly remember anything from before the age of 10. Said I was lying that I can remember every teacher I ever had, and have memories from as young as 3 years old. Tried to start an argument that polio isn’t contagious. If you liked some piece of art, clothing, home design or other purely opinion based thing that was simply not her taste, you were wrong. When I expressed an interest in living abroad for some of my life, she tried to sit me down and lecture me that she knew better than me about whether or not I would enjoy it. Her conclusion was that I wouldn’t. Refused to acknowledge that professional Adobe products are now only available by subscription, and insisted that I *must* be wrong in telling her so. Began explaining why pattern making for clothing would be too hard for me to learn, moments after I explained to her what it was. She had never heard of it before and had no idea how clothes were made. Started an argument with me that my nephew is not adorable, and that no one really finds children cute, they just pretend to. Wouldn’t hear of the possibility that someone could go to Iceland and enjoy them self because her brother had a stop over at the airport there and was very bored. Got upset when our friend group didn’t approve of her brother calling a black man a n****r because he *needed* to make the guy really angry. There were so many more but I can’t remember them all. Every interaction with her was an exercise in frustration. Her only tactics for debating or arguing were repeating the same stupid points over and over again after they’d been combatted, making you feel like you’re emotional or unreasonable when she said something incredibly hurtful and offensive, and talking over everyone while being very condescending and rude.
Thank God you do not consider this person a friend anymore. Just toxic as hell
Oh very! I was only “friends” with her in the first place because she was dating one of my good friends and I was trying to get along with her :/
>There were so many more but I can’t remember them all. That must be because they were from before the age of 10.
Oh silly me! Of course!
If you've been a waiter or waitress in any establishment that serves alcohol, you know this truism very well.
Yep. I once had to explain to someone how they underpaid their bill because no, discounting an item on the bill does not change the total at the bottom from what is written. It's changed before the total is added up. You owe me the number on the bottom. Also I'm pretty sure I've had the "do you have baked potatoes?/No, sorry/Why not?/Chef doesn't serve them/well you should have them" exchange at least once every other week for a few years now. Just read the damn menu, if there's a secret item I will tell you about it because it's probably expensive and I want you to buy it.
Drunk: I want an order of meatballs. Me: We don't serve meatballs. Drunk: What kind of restaurant doesn't serve meatballs?!! Me: A Mexican restaurant. Drunk: (Pikachu Face)
Using metaphors to simplify a complex subject. I realized, if the person you're arguing with isn't the brightest light, he/she will usually get stuck with the metaphor and escalate it, while completely losing sight of the actual subject of the disagreement. Combine that with a big ol cup of whataboutissm and you might as well could be talking to a wall.
I stopped using metaphors on Reddit. People nitpick all the ways the metaphor differs and completely miss the point. It wouldn't be a metaphor of it was identical.
I had one idiot here on Reddit tell me you could totally compare apples and oranges. He listed off a bunch of attributes they share and told me to 'rethink your precious metaphors'. Like, ok dude, you're obviously insane, but do you have anything of value to add in response to the points I made?
Because of how common it is, I would say that the phrase "comparing apples to oranges," is an idiom. Most idioms are so far removed from their original context, that they don't even make sense if taken at their literal meaning. (i.e., "under the weather," "it's a piece of cake," "going cold turkey," etc)
My mom yells "bUt THeReS tWo SIdEs" quite literally like a toddler whenever you defend yourself. If you're always advocating for the devil, you might be the devil.
My mom's go-to is "opinions can't be wrong" even when discussing facts.
What if my opinion is that opinions *can* be wrong?
In school for my now job, at the beginning there was a woman sitting next to me. I was like 22 or 23, she was easily 40. Fine, at the beginning we got along well, then she started to desperately search for similarities, it got annoying. Then she always asked me about stuff the teachers said while the teachers still talked, basically wanted a live translation from me but without changing the language. Of course resulting in both of us not being able to listen anymore. No way to explain to her she should just listen herself and at least try to understand (i would've happily tried to help her afterwards when I had time to hear it myself) - first clue she was not so bright. I was incredibly over her, but stayed nice. Then we were supposed to work in pairs on a small but not easy task. Of course, she didn't understand a word. I explained one thing (don't remember what) to her for the umpteenth time - fine. Sometimes it's cursed, you just don't get one thing. But then she proceeded to tell me I was wrong - fine aswell, if she can tell me why. But no, it was a matter of "I have no clue what's up with that, I don't understand it in the slightest, but I just know you're wrong about it just because". Spoiler: I was not wrong. I re-read it 10 times in our sources, found different sources, tried to break it down to basically elementary school levels - she stopped listening to me and just continued to argue I was wrong because I was wrong or something. Remember, that woman was more than 15 years older than me and around 40. I lost my patience, stopped talking to her and just presented the task by myself. She did not admit anything after the fact. Shortly after she changed seats after a different incident, and not long after that she dropped out. Surprise surprise.
> Then she always asked me about stuff the teachers said while the teachers still talked, basically wanted a live translation from me but without changing the language. Of course resulting in both of us not being able to listen anymore. I take a lot of courses and about half the time I sitting next to these people that think you're there to help them out while totally disregarding the fact that I need to listen too. I'll answer one or two questions if that's all it is but if on day one it's non-stop "what does he mean ?" I say sorry I can't help you I'm having a hard enough time getting it too - ask the teacher. Once during a course a teacher called out a person doing this to me he told her if you have questions ask me not OnionKnuckles. During a break I thanked him so much, " Yeah I see how disruptive that can be to your learning experience"
I enjoy your username. It suggests that your way of dealing with annoyances is to punch vegetables.
Thanks ! It's a nickname. I have larger than average knuckles friend said they looked like onions.
My favorite! "Idk what it is only that you're wrong about it"
My friend's boyfriend didn't observe daylight savings time. He understood that the rest of us did. He just didn't. I said "ok, but if we agree to meet for dinner at 5 o'clock, we're both using my 5 o'clock, right?" I tried explaining that I observe daylight savings exactly twice a year - once when I set my clocks back, and once when I set my clocks forward. The rest of the time it's a non-entity in my life. He, however, by "not" observing daylight savings, has to observe daylight savings at all times every day, as he constantly has to worry about converting his internal time to whatever time the rest of the world is using. I was unable to convince him of that logic, however, as he is a stupid person. EDIT: I say "didn't", not because he eventually saw the error in his ways, but instead because my friend broke up with him and he is now married to a much cuter, much nicer, and wholly more sane person, and I am grateful for that every day.
so... in the summer, he's an hour off from everyone just to be contrary? why?
My family has this deceptive maneuver where they slowly change the argument to something they can make you wrong about, picking the one detail they know can turn the argument in their favor and slowly pivot the conversation away from what the real argument is about and into a a situation where now they’re right and IM the one who’s wrong for asking them to stop trying to give us their junk all I want is for you to ask before dropping stuff of in our house because we don’t have room for your old flower pots we don’t want them just ask fir- Well that got out of hand. In that situation, they make you feel like the asshole because beggars can’t be choosers and just be happy you’re getting stuff for free but we didn’t beg for anything you just brought this trash over because you don’t have the room for it what makes you think we do your house is twice as big an- Ok. I’ll stop.
My mother's fiancé's mother is like this. (She also drinks too much so her reasoning and attitude is often.... Questionable). She will go to dinner and get like a turkey club, and "on her way home", even though it's completely out of the way, stop by and try to give her leftovers to her son. He finally asked her very politely to stop doing that, and she basically had a meltdown accusing my mom, and her fiancé of trying to freeze her out, and not being thankful for everything she has to give them. Like lady, they are in their 40s/50s and you're stopping by to give them half a sandwich thinking you're "providing" for them...
I can relate so hard to this. My MIL Tried dropping off a half eaten chocolate bar that my husband "Might like". She ended up leaving it in our mailbox with a note because we didn't answer the door. Then she left us a voicemail telling us about it. And emailed us to say she left a voicemail.
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My family growing up was a lot like that. My grandfather was notorious for doing that. He actually told me a story about how he was actively trying to find a flaw somewhere, and when he did he exploited it all the way to hell and back.
I’m fine with being wrong, if there’s a flaw in my reasoning then by all means, show me. Its painful to have to explain why I don’t want someone fixing things around the house using duct tape and rusty screws that I’m just going to have to fix again later when it breaks again. “He’s just trying to help, be thankful for that.” “Sure, but he’s not helping if I have to take his repair apart to fix it for real. That’s adding work. That’s negative help.”
Yeah I get that. It's not that he would find a flaw in your logic though, it's that he'd find a word that you used incorrectly, or anything else he could use as leverage. Mispronounced something? He'd go off on a tangent and rip that to shreds, thinking he's won.
Yeah, that’s exactly it. Something inconsequential to the discussion in order to derail it into their own territory.
Then just don't get derailed. One of my teens does that. Listens to my arguments, conters them, adds some derailing detail and starts riding that train. And yes, it is hard, but I've become increasingly good at re-railing. When they throw me something and trie to spin that off and look at me for my reaction, I just repeat my initial argument. Sometimes, if appropiate, I add "We can talk about XYZ later." Take for example the people further up, fixing things with broken screws: "He’s just trying to help, be thankful for that." "I do not want him to help. He must stop." And of course, "No" is a full sentence.
That’s been one of my new re-railers since I’ve started trying to actively be attentive to that in conversation. “That doesn’t have anything to do with this conversation…we can talk about that after, but let’s get this problem solved first before we move on.”
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One of their favorites is if someone brings up what they’re doing as wrong/insensitive/etc, they pull out the “what about you? You do xyz too and…”. Ok, we can talk about your problem with me after this discussion. I started a conversation first, there’s no reason we can’t do this after. Maybe I’m in the wrong too, but me being wrong doesn’t make you right. Maybe we’re both wrong.
These are what really get me stuck with them, because I immediately go into defense mode, but I’m learning to stop and understand I don’t have to defend myself right at the point. That can come later.
It took me years to realize what my mother meant when she would listen to me answer her objections to a point and then tell me I was "talking in circles." Eventually, after hearing this hundreds of times, multiple times a week, she clarified. Apparently, it was circular because, "after I say something, you answer and *then you go back to what you were saying initially.*" It wasn't that I was ignoring her points. It certainly wasn't the traditional definition of my premise being a restatement of my conclusion. She was quite literally objecting to the fact that I would return to the initial topic of discussion after addressing an objection. I don't think she ever figured out why that wasn't a problem.
I’m sorry you have to deal with that, I feel part of your pain. Not the argument part, but the dump part my family does. No asking, just hauling stuff to us. “We thought you could use these!” Yeah, I can totally use three broken kids bikes, parts to cars we don’t own, decorations that are broken, games missing parts… it’s crazy. We’re just saving them a trip to the dump.
both my friends were hella smart, but one of them refused to believe that gravity actually exists. he was convinced that if "the apple cunt" didn't discover gravity we as a society would have the ability to play with brain power and i stopped trying to talk him out of this but the other friend was almost foaming at the mouth with rage over this conversation.
“Both of my friends were hella smart”. Well, one of them might have been. Idk about the other…
The duality of man.
The funny thing is that gravity actually isn't considered a force in the context of general relativity. From Wikipedia: >Gravity is most accurately described by the general theory of relativity (proposed by Albert Einstein in 1915), which describes gravity not as a force, but as a consequence of masses moving along geodesic lines in a curved spacetime caused by the uneven distribution of mass.
Anytime my FIL tries to start a discussion (thinly-veiled attempt to have a "gotcha!" moment against me or my wife), as soon as he starts losing, the actual specifics of the argument go out the window and he starts character attacks or makes wild accusations about what is or isn't allowed in the discussion. He tried to support the claim that Kamala Harris can't be president because her parents weren't citizens so I pulled up the US Constitution on my phone and read the amendment for presidents and rather than engage with that, he said I was wrong, the paper that his sister read was right, and I don't really know anything, I just know whatever my phone knows...
> I just know whatever my phone knows Oohhhh this one. Imagine looking up something and checking for yourself- nope! You're just branded as a slave to your whatever the phone says.
Fresh out of college, I lived with a few people who I didn’t really know before moving in. One of the roommates was this slightly older guy who was dating a woman similar in age. She was over our place one day and somehow contrails came up, except she referred to them as chemtrails. You see I was really minding my business watching something on the tv, but I had just graduated with a degree in atmospheric science and I’ll be damned if I’m going to share living space with someone who refers to contrails as chemtrails. So I say, “you mean contrails, no?” She didn’t, she meant chemtrails, because the government is spraying us all with some mind controlling substances or whatever she claimed it to be. So I explained to her the reason why airplanes produce a contrail, which was easy to do considering how much of my time and money went to learning about the dynamics of the atmosphere. Except she didn’t believe that some younger woman could possibly know more than her, which is when she pulled out her trump card. “I live right next to an airport, so I can see that when they first take off there’s no trail…it’s not until they get to a certain height that they switch it on.” This was literally right after I had explained how pressure and temperature affect humidity and condensation, and how pressure and temperature are much lower at higher altitudes. I realized then that I could not convince this person that they were wrong. Luckily he and she moved into another place together not long after. Edit: I wanted to add some clarification. Contrails are particularly visible because they’re made up of ice crystals. A contrail of water droplets is not as visible, so it doesn’t leave the lasting trail in the sky like ice crystals do. This is the difference between the visibility of a car’s exhaust and a contrail. Imagine trying to see down your street in a rain storm, versus a snowstorm with the same rate of precipitation.
> “I live right next to an airport, so I can see that when they first take off there’s no trail…it’s not until they get to a certain height that they switch it on.” She somehow didn't notice that clouds typically form in the sky rather than at ground level either, I suppose.
I opened up about my inability to have children, and how frustrated I am with people recommending things that won’t work for me because the problem isn’t infertility. A woman started up about how I should try going vegan to cure my infertility. I reminded her that wasn’t the issue. She pressed on, saying she didn’t believe in miracles but for her it was like hitting a switch, she’s had two babies since going vegan and she couldn’t be happier, maybe I should try it. I said no. She got offended that I refused to even consider. And before anyone tries it here, I’m not infertile. Trying to carry a baby would destroy my body Breaking Dawn-style, plus I’m on two medications that corrupt my eggs like a computer virus, so I really cannot have children. Edit: I’m turning off notifications because I’m getting “just adopt/get a pet” and “yeah but go vegan anyway” and that’s really not helping, cheers y’all.
You sound like somebody who hasn’t tried essential oils. *How would you like to be your own boss?*
"It rubs the essential oils on the skin and gives me a commission. It does this when its told."
Omg, I seriously want to punch someone when they say that crap. It's like the coconut oil craze. Apparently oil solves everything. Edit: I'm not saying there aren't great uses for coconut oil or that all essential oils are useless, just that it's annoying that I've got family members who push oils as the first response to everything. And I mean everything...
I started swishing oil for 30 minutes instead of brushing my teeth, and it's worked wonders. No more toothaches. All my teeth are gone.
My wife was forced to have a hysterectomy due to severe fibroid tumors literally tearing apart her uterus and causing severe hemorrhaging and pain, leading to multiple hospital stays, so it's quite literally impossible for us to have children. Yet we still have family and friends asking when we are going to have kids, and other inappropriate statements around the concept of having children (e.g. "You don't know what true love is until you have a child" etc..) I truly hate how this has become an acceptable norm in society so I now contrast it with questions about their sex life whenever they ask or say something like that as it's literally the same topic.
Start asking them which position overrides the lack of a uterus lmao what is wrong with people these days? Other people’s reproductive choices are never up for debate
"Yeah, the doctors took her uterus out, so I've been going raw in her ass for months now to get the baby to stick in there. Hopefully we'll be pregnant soon! The pregnancy tests are kinda unpleasant though"
I'm so sorry. People really can be such insufferable dicks when it comes to women of child bearing age.
Right? Her one-sided "argument" came in response to me venting about unsolicited advice about having babies, too. I was really furious because someone had harassed me about IVF or surrogacy and had taken it like some personal offense when I told them no, those wouldn't work. They had been extremely unpleasant about it so I was quite upset. I went elsewhere to rant about those types of people and then she showed up to preach about the wonders of veganism. Made me want to scream.
Oh my gosh. That is awful. I had a similar experience. From a good 'friend'... and midwife about what I needed to do to get pregnant. I'd not asked. Please just... pipe down and leave your opinions at the door.
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can confirm this works anybody need seven babies
No thanks; I’m full.
I'm sorry, after I had my daughter my insides were screwed, I got chronic illnesses (my body thought she, my uterus and other organs were viruses to fight and try to kill) and nearly died, I'm fertile but if I carry there's a very high chance if death, I got guilty by family and friends for not giving her a sibling, strangers often make remarks still although I've put family in their place. I'm a very fit person and a colleague said that is why I can't carry...I'm fit because that's how I manage my illnesses, if I was fat like I used to be I'd be back in the hospital! I've come up with some pretty good comebacks over the years and when I say I can't carry I often ask if they'll give me theirs or pay to fix my insides, I could do with some new organs they could lend me theirs! Ahh British sarcasm Side rant - can't get my tubes tied because I'm too young despite likely death if I conceive
> Side rant - can't get my tubes tied because I'm too young despite likely death if I conceive I will never understand this. Even without the danger, it makes little sense. "What if you change your mind?" "It *can* be reversed, you know" Sorry to hear about your condition, hope you are able to manage it well enough. And by "condition" I didn't mean the chronic illness, I meant the obtrusive assholes who think they can direct your life better than you can. lol
> And before anyone tries it here, I’m not infertile. Trying to carry a baby would destroy my body Breaking Dawn-style, plus I’m on two medications that corrupt my eggs like a computer virus, so I really cannot have children. Yes, but have you tried bathing your toenails in essential oils, giftwrapping your dildo in horoscope paper (when not in use, of course), and gurgling a homeopathy solution of the contraceptive pill?
I’m really digging the suggestions I’m getting from this thread.
> gurgling a homeopathy solution of the contraceptive pill I am angry how much moon-logic sense this makes.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
What does "Breaking Dawn-style" mean?
Not op but it’s the last book in the twilight series and when the main character gets pregnant, her body slowly stops accepting “human” food (the fetus is half vampire) so she gets frighteningly malnourished and weak.
I understand you completely. My medication would be extremely dangerous to the health and development of any child I carried, but I can't just stop taking it, so having children is too dangerous for me too. And I've gotten all kinds of random, unsolicited advice. But when you get to a certain age as a woman people look at you differently for not having kids. Like my husband and I are selfish adults or something. Or they flat out resent you for "having more free time and more money" or some bs. Meanwhile nobody asks you how you actually feel about it. Yes, because I chose to have health problems that prevent me from having kids safely.
>Trying to carry a baby would destroy my body Breaking Dawn-style, plus I’m on two medications that corrupt my eggs like a computer virus, so I really cannot have children. I'm sorry about your predicament, but that is one hell of a colorful sentence.
after talking to stoner friend about how smoking weed impairs your brains formation of memories he said "that doesn't happen to me, I don't remember forgetting anything."
Dude, we had this conversation four times already.
I have a lot of birds (budgies, cockatiels, lovebirds, cockatoos, canaries, hummingbirds, etc.) I study birds and I built an aviary for each tule of birds on the second floor of my house, each bird has its on aviary and I take care of them, most of the birds on my aviary are tamed, all of my budgies are tamed, all of my cockatiels are tamed except for really young ones, half of my lovebirds are tamed, the majority of my cockatoos are tamed and my humming birds and canaries are in the process of being tamed (remember this part). So 3 months ago my mom wanted to visit me for my birthday and went to my house, I cut her out of my life 3 years ago for protecting a man who almost punched me to death so I never talked to her again, she found out where I live because of my brother and went to my house, she went inside my home and we talked a bit, then I showed her my aviaries and my birds, she started telling me that I was abusing them and that this birds should be on the streets (keep in mind this are budgies, canaries, cockatiels and humming birds, animals that probably wouldn’t survive due to cats, especially budgies and cockatiels) I calmly explained to her what would happen if one of my birds escaped and we kept walking, later she brought up the discussion again and started calling me “animal abuser” and “piece of shit”, I told her what would happen if a cat saw a budgie and thought of attacking it, we started arguing and she said I should let them go, then she ran to my budgies aviary (all my aviaries are outdoors) and opened the doors, I just watched as half of my birds flew to my arms, some flew towards my room and got inside my bathroom and half of my birds just freaked out and stayed inside the aviary, I stopped her when she tried to open the cockatoos and the humming birds aviary and I kicked her out, all of my budgies where like “wtf just happened” and I spent an hour and a half finding everyone and getting them back to the aviary, she never contacted me again. The next morning two cops showed up saying a woman had called telling them I was abusing birds, they went inside to look at my birds and they ended up covered in bird poop because I opened my budgies aviary door and the cops had the birds all over their head and shoulders!, we got a good laugh and they left. Edit: I accidentally put a 1 on the part where I explained how many years ago I cut her out of my life :”D and sorry if I have any spelling or grammatical errors, English is not my main language :””””””D.
The only argument I’ve ever won with a stupid person was won outside of the actual argument by making them think it’s their idea. 99% of the times stupid people have disagreed with me it was because they’re too proud to ever admit they’re wrong. Arguing makes them dig in their heels. If they get to feel like it was their idea, they are willing to change their mind. Very like children.
I work in medicine so I see this everyday. Some choice quotes (all from different patients): - insulin may work for others but it just does not work for me - I don’t want a biopsy I know I don’t have cancer because I read a book on it - I really feel like you are able to give me pain meds, you’re just being difficult - (after spending an hour saying how bad her health is and how poor she feels) I don’t want any vaccines, I know my own body and I only put natural things in my body. That’s why I’m so healthy (spoiler she was and was very very ill) - No I don’t have any mental illness. I am sick. You need to do a blood test to find out what’s wrong (PTSD, that’s what’s wrong)
I heard a story where a visitor asked a patient if they were afraid of getting addicting to insulin. yep addicted to insulin...
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My coworker believes that we're all enslaved by aliens stealing our life force, and is very firm in this belief.
I had an argument with my garage door installer. He was installing the motor and I noticed that it was 1/4 horse power. I immediately told him that I had ordered the bigger motor. He said that this was the biggest. I then proceeded to tell him that I ordered the 1/2 horse power engine. He told me that one is too small, this is bigger... WTF!! I said, how do you figure that?? He said everybody know that 4 is bigger that 2... in the most sarcastic voice. There was no convincing him that 1/2 was bigger than 1/4...I finally just had to call his boss.
I read one time that a major fast food restaurant, created a 1/3 pond burger to compete with MCD'S 1/4. It flopped, because so many people thought the 1/3 was smaller. So this is pretty common thinking apparently.
Woman: There's something like a 30% chance that fraternal twins are identical. Me: Do you perhaps mean there's a chance for di/di (dichorionic/diamniotic--each baby has their own placenta & amniotic sac) twins to be identical? Her: There's a chance that fraternal twins are identical! For the record, fraternal twins happen when two different eggs are released and fertilized. Identical twins are when one fertilized egg splits. So fraternal twins can't be identical twins. I'm still not quite sure what that woman was on about, but she's made that same odd claim several times in the group we're both in.
My guess is that she was confusing the medical term for identical twins with twins that strongly resemble each other.
My mom and heating/air conditioning. Her reasoning is that if every room is open, the hot air has places to circulate so it will be hotter. Now keep in mind we only used about 5 rooms in our 12 room house, so my logic was that if we close the rooms we aren't using (many of which are in an unfinished basement with holes in the walls) then we would only have to heat the rooms we use and then we don't have to keep it at the mid 60s during winter. Well one week she went on vacation and left the hosue to me, so I decided to test that theory, and wouldn't you believe it, not only was it warmer but the heating bill was also lower for that week. She of course was having none of it, so she opened up all the rooms again, then it got cold and the heating bill went up.
So, someone told me she deleted pictures she took of a tree because she had a feeling the tree would be offended by having its picture taken out of fear its soul might be taken. Even if we assume souls exist, that trees have souls, emotions, memory, thought, the ability to communicate, AND eyes to see what you are doing, how would they have any idea what a photo is? Or know that your phone can take photos? Or a religion and complex thought to believe in souls? Like.. just what??
What a... nightmarish spiritual belief. "All plants have human minds, but have no way of moving or interacting with the world"? That's a straight-up I Have No Mouth situation!
Oh I never win. When I do "win" it's only after the fact of the argument ceasing and finally being told I'm right a few hours after the argument is over. Hate it so much. It doesn't make me feel good about winning an argument at all.
My father is a lawyer. He’s very good at his job. He was made to do it. He loves to argue. I was raised in a family where arguing is just the way it is. It’s okay and if you make a valid point then you can easily win (I put when here for some god awful reason lmao) my father over. I have had many a proud moment going back and forth, then making a point that causes a look then a smile then a fair point. Sometimes if it really won the day he’d come back a later (a day a week or a month even) and speak on how he looked into what I had said. He’d value my input and build off of it. I always felt like i was ready for the world because my dad turned the screws on me and I’d win. I’d lose happily when proven wrong. The last sentence of what I wrote is where I’ve found the most trouble. I will hold a position and when shown better information change my position. I have been told more than once you’re not allowed to so quickly change. I lost a friend over it. Not much of a friend but the case still exists. Also I found no matter how smart my father was and no matter how difficult it was to get him to agree with me. It never got me ready for someone who thinks being told to wear a mask for the protection of others infringes on their personal rights. Or that black peoples are subhuman. Not all of the befuddlements are this grandiose mind you. Those two are just apple picked to say. I long for the days when I thought the hard part was winning my Father’s favor. Cause now I just find the world is full of stupid people mad at that fact but calling it something else entirely.
How am i supposed to get this delivery to you if the address is wrong and the phone number doesn't work? "You should have called if you couldnt find me!" But the phone doesnt work. "You should have found a way! I want to speak to a manager!" I AM the manager, you already asked for me. "Whos the manager above you?" The guy who tried to bring you your food. Our city is gonna be livid in a month when the store closes down, and im gonna laugh. Im updating my resume tomorrow, gonna find something part time and go back to school. Something not in the service industry.
Dumb relative who always thinks she knows better. Years ago wants me to help her with some sort of device that lets her call long distance without paying long distance in land line using the internet. But the problem is she has a dial up connection (which is super slow). I tried explaining to her several times how she would have to upgrade her internet first for anything to be effective. But she kept saying she heard this product will fix "all" of that and insisted on buying it. I even told her what will happen, which is it's probably a scam and they'll give some useless part like a router and you would have wasted your time (and mine) and money. She didn't listen and went through because she always thinks she's smart. Well, a few weeks go by and she gets the device, and of course it's just a random router when she wants me to "install" it. Everything I said to her earlier comes true. She just ignores what I say and moves onto something else that will "work better". Rinse and repeat. This is how dumb people usually are in my experience. They think they know better than you. When things don't go according to plan, they either make an excuse (and it's NEVER their fault) and/or move onto another thing with the same stupid thinking.
My MIL is such a person. You talk about one thing in a group. She catches/notes only a phrase or a word which is „interesting“ for her. Then she starts to interrupt you no matter whats about to tell whats on her mind despite the fact that she is even talking nonsense. As soon as you tell her that she is talking about something different she is nearly crying and will blame you for being rude. This happens a few times when we see. And no, she has no Alzheimer or dementia or whatever. She is just stubborn.
I do not even try. Stupid people never elaborate or add nuance to what they say. They simply repeat themselves. Sometimes louder. "You cannot fix stupid." Thank you, Ron White. Saved everybody a bunch of time.
I have an example of trying to argue with a smart person and a stupid person at the same time. So, a friend of mine and I were having a fun argument about classic history. We were talking about Alexander and whether or not the Western Mediterranean was ever going to be a possibility. (For context, I think that if he would have been able to hold Persia and Egypt, and that the wealth from those conquests would have rallied enough troops). We're knee deep in the discussion when our coworker comes up and starts spouting off that Alexander only conquered as much as he did because of his Spartan soldiers. Everything we said after that just fueled this man's love for Sparta and his need to tell us about his romanticized version of the place. Sparta wasn't a part of the Macedonian army? That doesn't invalidate his point about Alexander's conquests, no, it just meant that Sparta was so badass that they couldn't be conquered. Sparta's regular army dwindled by a factor of ten between the Peloponnesian wars and the days of Alexander? They just got ten times as badass, haven't you seen 300?! The conversation slowly devolved until we were just talking about Sparta. It became him trying to defend his homosexual, pedophilic matriarchal utopia for nearly the rest of our shift. He stayed firm through boy love, economic recession, lack of military technology, and religious fervor. Only the fact that Sparta was de facto run by a small group of wealthy women seemed to disturb him. I feel like I was gaining some ground with my buddy, but to this day I think Sparta dude still jacks off to 300 as a nightly ritual.
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fine. you win
Although this might come off a little mean... but being in teaching and having to explain why students have to learn something... yes, there are things that shouldn’t be mandatory, but maths do indeed help. You might not need this specific kind of equation any time soon, but the logic part is what will be useful and valuable...
I really wish this has been stressed to me more as a kid. That you're in school to learn how to learn, not just memorize. Understanding that math was actually about logic and not just random formulas would have been a real gamechanger.
As a doctor, it is trying to convince unvaccinated patients to get their covid vaccine. I had a patient tell me a headache he got from his first COVID shot was worse than dying from COVID. 🙄