You are so wrong

Ok, here’s one.

Very little gets my back up more than someone telling me I’m wrong. (What? I’m working on it.)

I’m sure that doesn’t apply to you.

Thing is, I’ve noticed that if I go one level deeper, one level more specific, I think there’s a way of phrasing ‘You’re wrong’ that might not lead to pissing people off so much.

Here’s my hypothesis:

When you want to say, ‘No, you’re wrong,’ start the sentence with ‘I…’

For example…

No, you’re wrong I didn’t find them

I was in Changi airport this morning, and I got directions to the toilets. I didn’t find them. My first reaction was, ‘Puh, well, he was wrong.’

Luckily, I wasn’t grumpy, so I didn’t have to say that.

But what I would have meant by ‘You’re wrong’ is ‘I didn’t find them.’

No, you’re wrong I don’t remember it that way/I just don’t recall that

Now, at first glance, this sounds a bit Clinton-esque, but I’m not talking about lying.

This is when a Person You Care About says something about something that happened in the past that is patently not true (er…to you).

For example, ‘You said…’, ‘We agreed…’, ‘It was Wednesday…’, ‘We’ve never been there…’

Memory is appallingly unreliable, but feels totally dependable.

And this is one of those human condition things, that the other person feels just as certain about their memory.

And saying, ‘You’re wrong,’ is going to achieve no. Thing.

Differences in remembering lead to arguments that can’t be won, so the sooner you admit that although you remember things differently, you might be wrong, the sooner you can get on with your Extremely Short and Precious Life.

Rather than saying, ‘No, you’re wrong,’ maybe it might work to say, ‘Ok, I don’t remember it that way.’

Important note: you have to say it like you mean it. Surly, it no work.

(Note to self: Read Elizabeth Loftus about the inaccuracy of memory like you’ve been meaning to for, er, about 6 years.)

No, you’re wrong I see things differently/I came to a different conclusion

This one’s for when it’s a matter of opinion that you’re disagreeing on.

Opinions can’t be wrong, yet we get so hung up on our own point of view that we forget we made it from data, and often pretty sparse data at that (See Be Less Certain).

It’s the issue of the Lost Performative (see the article I haven’t yet written on The Lost Performative – it’s about how we lose the fact that we performed the conclusions we’ve drawn about the world. It’s totally interesting. In my HEAD.).

So what do you mean when you say, ‘No, that’s just not true,’ on matters that aren’t totally based around observable fact?

It feels wrong – how can someone else not see it? Especially when it’s so obvious… and especially when this isn’t even a matter of opinion. Not really…

Thing is, it’s always a conclusion. Admitting that might be useful.

No, you’re wrong I see myself differently

This is subset a, paragraph iii of ‘I see things differently’.

For when people say, ‘You’re so…’ and end with something less than flattering.

I think I stole this from Faber and Mazlish.

Now I’ve written it, it seems a bit annoying.

***

Somehow this made more sense when I wrote it in the middle of a long-haul flight.

I think the issue might be to phrase it in a way that’s not totally weird.

Oh, well, I did say this is a sketchbook…

(Internal Editor: See, they’re all going to unsubscribe now… )

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