[insert name here] are an idiot

[m_danson]

Have you ever gotten into a conversation/debate/arguement where you are carefully laying out your side in a logical arguement backed up with evidence only to have them respond with something that profoundly demonstrates either a complete lack of logical thought or a complete disregard for evidence

Comments

[spiritonparole]

I don't consider myself pessimistic. The majority of people I meet don't much impress me, so I don't really bother with them. I don't expect to impress many people, either; if you try to impress everyone all of the time, or align yourself with everyone else's world view, you wind up becoming inconsistent and nondescript. I pick my battles and don't bother about the rest.

I tend to gravitate towards other people who are socially liberal and accepting of different religious beliefs, lifestyles, etc. This way, when I do engage in debate with a stubborn person, I don't have to listen to him/her bashing on me for dressing in black/having piercings/not believing in a god/being childfree and pro-choice/whatever else they think makes me "evil." There are certain people with whom it is pointless to argue because they don't see logic as important. That's their choice, but I keep my sanity by leaving such individuals to their own devices.

That said, if someone does take it upon him/herself to question my morality, I quietly and concisely rip him/her to intellectual shreds. I have reduced people to tears because I intimidated them so badly, even without raising my voice or using any harsh language. People who've seen my tongue in action tend to avoid messing with me in the first place, or if they do mess with me, they try to use cheap intimidation tactics like yelling or reminding me that they're older than I am. It never works, because that just makes me tell them to come back when they're ready to discuss the actual facts of the situation.

I rarely get angry, as it's rare that anything actually moves me to such strong emotion. I have three fundamental settings: content, mildly annoyed, and "kill." To witness the last one, you need to be (a) very close to me and (b) really push my buttons on an issue of great importance. Few people meet the first criteria, and those who do tend to know better anyway.

[m_danson]

The majority of people I meet don't much impress me, so I don't really bother with them. I don't expect to impress many people

hee hee... pretty much correct here as well although I've been told that attitude is wrong by various people.

It's mostly my own attitude I'm questioning here. I know it pisses me off when somebody just dismisses me yet I know I do it to others (in certain situations) as an automatic reaction. Sometimes it feels like my 'liking' someone can be turned off like a light switch being flipped.

[night_princess]

> I've been told that attitude is wrong by various people.

Everything is wrong to somebody. Besides, the idiot was the one who didn't bother to listen to or understand your arguments first. I see it as only fair and reasonable to not bother with the idiot as a result.

> I know it pisses me off when somebody just dismisses me yet I know I do it to others (in certain situations) as an automatic reaction. Sometimes it feels like my 'liking' someone can be turned off like a light switch being flipped.

I tend to compartmentalize the damage. I can still like people in general but not like them when dealing with certain topics. For example, my SP friends are a lot of fun and great for sharing meals, playing games, and just hanging out, but I just don't try to seriously converse with them about abstract topics. My SJ work friends are great for talking about technical details and money matters, but I just laugh off their attempts at conversations about my lifestyle choices and make standard polite noises when they talk about their kids. There are a few people whom I've decided have too few good parts to be able to deal with or avoid the bad parts, but for most people, I can dislike particular parts of a person without disliking the whole person. I normally assume that people are complex enough to have some redeeming quality somewhere, even if I haven't uncovered it yet, so I'm generally very slow to write them off completely. I'll normally simply start avoiding more and more aspects about a person until I end up naturally not dealing with them any longer. (The ones that I've decided had too few good parts to deal with were basically forced on me, whether they repeatedly forced their presence on me themselves or circumstances required too much interaction, until I had to explicitly acknowledge that I just don't want to deal with them at all.)

[night_princess]

> I'll normally simply start avoiding more and more aspects about a person until I end up naturally not dealing with them any longer.

(Or until I find what's good about them.)