No, What I Meant Was

You know an argument has gone too far when everyone involved is just discussing things that happened on a previous lap. You know, like "When you said this to me, I thought you were saying this other thing, so I said that, and then when you responded with this . . ."

One of my goals is to avoid that sort of thing. Because it's my theory that once an argument goes down that path, you're doomed. Whatever the original point was has been tossed aside as people get more and more layers removed and talk about nothing but what they were talking about a few minutes ago. Not only is it annoying, it's redundant.

Now, sometimes I'll say something that someone misunderstands. That happens particularly in e-mail; like I'll say something, and the recipient takes it as an insult. When that happens, my first impulse is to send another e-mail saying "No, that's not what I meant." But the problem is that I'm talking to someone who's already decided I'm a jerk and that I'm arguing with them. So if I send a correction, we're instantly mired in the downward spiral of explanations of what our previous explanations meant.

So what I do now is walk away. If someone online misunderstands what I'm talking about, that's it. Discussion's over. I realize that I'm leaving people with the impression that I'm a jerk (from my first e-mail they misunderstood) with attention deficit disorder (because I never followed up), but for my money, that's better than spending all my spare time trying to straighten out misunderstandings with people who seem determined to make a career out of purposely misconstruing everything I say as an insult.