About Life and the People in it.
So, according to a friend, who's opinion I trust, I'm a very argumentative person. This is no surprise to me. I'm pretty sure he knew I wouldn't be offended by this because I know it already. I know that I occasionally fight just because there's two sides to an issue and I feel one isn't being fairly represented. I know that occasionally, I switch sides in a fight just to keep the playing field level. I play the Devil's Advocate a lot, just because I enjoy it. And according to said friend, I do often come off as forcing my opinion on someone. Quite possibly because he hasn't seen me back down in an argument.
What I find curious is why this still seems to offend some "friends." It's not like I've denied that I do this. Nor do I really care what the opinion is in the end. You'd think they'd notice this eventually. Some topics, yes, I feel strongly about. Most of the time, I just like the debate. Hell, I'll argue both sides of the "intelligent creater" sometimes, in one debate. But then I have a friend getting really defensive at me cause he thinks I was trying to force my opinion that Warhammer Online is better than World of Warcraft. The saddest thing is this discussion wasn't with him at all. It was with his girlfriend. And I went out of my way to NOT debate it. I think my wording was "I think WAR is better, but I barely played WoW." And then I planned to asks her BF if he planned on playing it ever, because he'd been really excited for it and she said she'd only play if he did. I never did ask. I never got beyond a hello. Or rather a poke. Because I've used the word hello like, 4 times in the past year. This was when I got told I was forcing my opinion. And that WoW was the far superior product and a couple of other phrases which made it sound like I was a moron for my admittedly biased opinion. When I actually got back to respond, I got a couple of "Did you even bother playing WoW?" comments which seemed absurd because I'd already repeated that I was biased. Obviously the message didn't get through.
What's sad is he honestly seemed to think I cared which game he played. Oh yeah, I cared so much. I wanted to know if I could expect to see him in game eventually. That was it. If the answer was no, so be it. There are some people I would really like to play WAR with. Then there's some who I would play with if they were in the game. There's a difference. He claims I cared because I went through the trouble to ask. Truth is, I was mostly just talking to his girlfriend because it was late at night and no one else was on. I was lonely. Maybe I did care a bit. But not really enough to fight about it with him. And I'm not sure he ever got the point. He kept telling me that the bottom line was he thought WoW was superior and that was it. I kept trying to point out that the real bottom line I was looking for was that he was attacking me over something he thought I said. I'd truly stopped caring about the game at all. It wasn't that important to begin with. To some level, it came down to a "He said, she said" game. Cause he kept claiming that his girlfriend had "summarized my points and that I had to chose my words more carefully." I'm not sure how I'm supposed to chose which of my words get summarized. I don't think the girlfriend took it this way. Or at least, she wouldn't admit it to me if she had. I would have apologized to her. On the other hand, I'm not sure how I apologize for something that I didn't say or intend to say. I mean, even if I like to argue, I don't particularly like forcing my opinion on people. I know it happens, but it's never my intent. I'm sure I've said this to people before when we meet. I think I'm getting lazy about repeating me to every new person I see. Honestly, if you're getting offended, you've taken me too seriously. I should put this in my LJ somewhere.
I think situations like this remind me why I prefer to make my own guilds, rather than join them. Drama is a BAD thing for me. It's awful. Why is that? Because I like to argue. And whenever drama occurs, it's almost always because two people get in a disagreement, and they both think they're right. You can imagine how given a situation where I'm offended AND I think I'm right, I don't ever stop fighting. I'm pretty sure one of those conditions alone makes me keep up the fight. At least with my own guild, I feel a little more responsible over the people, and I don't get into fights. Not to mention the whole "have the power to remove exceptionally drama-prone people." I suspect my inability to handle drama in a good way is why I have so many male friends, and such odd female ones. I simply surround myself with people who are less likely to cause drama in the first place.
Then I get my drama fix from reading stupid people fighting with smarter ones on the internet. Nothing quite like reading someone be blatently and obviously wrong about everything.
What I find curious is why this still seems to offend some "friends." It's not like I've denied that I do this. Nor do I really care what the opinion is in the end. You'd think they'd notice this eventually. Some topics, yes, I feel strongly about. Most of the time, I just like the debate. Hell, I'll argue both sides of the "intelligent creater" sometimes, in one debate. But then I have a friend getting really defensive at me cause he thinks I was trying to force my opinion that Warhammer Online is better than World of Warcraft. The saddest thing is this discussion wasn't with him at all. It was with his girlfriend. And I went out of my way to NOT debate it. I think my wording was "I think WAR is better, but I barely played WoW." And then I planned to asks her BF if he planned on playing it ever, because he'd been really excited for it and she said she'd only play if he did. I never did ask. I never got beyond a hello. Or rather a poke. Because I've used the word hello like, 4 times in the past year. This was when I got told I was forcing my opinion. And that WoW was the far superior product and a couple of other phrases which made it sound like I was a moron for my admittedly biased opinion. When I actually got back to respond, I got a couple of "Did you even bother playing WoW?" comments which seemed absurd because I'd already repeated that I was biased. Obviously the message didn't get through.
What's sad is he honestly seemed to think I cared which game he played. Oh yeah, I cared so much. I wanted to know if I could expect to see him in game eventually. That was it. If the answer was no, so be it. There are some people I would really like to play WAR with. Then there's some who I would play with if they were in the game. There's a difference. He claims I cared because I went through the trouble to ask. Truth is, I was mostly just talking to his girlfriend because it was late at night and no one else was on. I was lonely. Maybe I did care a bit. But not really enough to fight about it with him. And I'm not sure he ever got the point. He kept telling me that the bottom line was he thought WoW was superior and that was it. I kept trying to point out that the real bottom line I was looking for was that he was attacking me over something he thought I said. I'd truly stopped caring about the game at all. It wasn't that important to begin with. To some level, it came down to a "He said, she said" game. Cause he kept claiming that his girlfriend had "summarized my points and that I had to chose my words more carefully." I'm not sure how I'm supposed to chose which of my words get summarized. I don't think the girlfriend took it this way. Or at least, she wouldn't admit it to me if she had. I would have apologized to her. On the other hand, I'm not sure how I apologize for something that I didn't say or intend to say. I mean, even if I like to argue, I don't particularly like forcing my opinion on people. I know it happens, but it's never my intent. I'm sure I've said this to people before when we meet. I think I'm getting lazy about repeating me to every new person I see. Honestly, if you're getting offended, you've taken me too seriously. I should put this in my LJ somewhere.
I think situations like this remind me why I prefer to make my own guilds, rather than join them. Drama is a BAD thing for me. It's awful. Why is that? Because I like to argue. And whenever drama occurs, it's almost always because two people get in a disagreement, and they both think they're right. You can imagine how given a situation where I'm offended AND I think I'm right, I don't ever stop fighting. I'm pretty sure one of those conditions alone makes me keep up the fight. At least with my own guild, I feel a little more responsible over the people, and I don't get into fights. Not to mention the whole "have the power to remove exceptionally drama-prone people." I suspect my inability to handle drama in a good way is why I have so many male friends, and such odd female ones. I simply surround myself with people who are less likely to cause drama in the first place.
Then I get my drama fix from reading stupid people fighting with smarter ones on the internet. Nothing quite like reading someone be blatently and obviously wrong about everything.