2025-02-28

Today had been a rumination about how I talk to friends. I realized that I was bothered by one of my conversations with my friends last weekend because it has been running at the back of my mind 24/7. During the conversation, I find myself baffled by the approach, when gender issues suddenly became the topic out of nowhere, and delivered with such certainty without an allowance of intellectual humility. Faced with that, I was unprepared to enter a discourse, which may have made me more dismissive with the way I delivered my points.

I still stand by what I said. I just realized how that was a missed opportunity of trying to understand where my friend is coming from. In hindsight, I was surprised that I went for the emotional route in communication and even unaware while I was doing so. I guess I was too inconsiderate that every person that I interact with do not have the same thought practice as I do. I was too impatient to make him realize that he is wrong because he is concluding using an incomplete set of information. I felt like I was talking to a person who only wanted to be validated with the information that they are presenting and that most likely ticked me off.

Well, I place too much responsibility on the person in having a better framework of understanding the world. I still think that it is a human act, to be better at thinking about ourselves and the world. And that day, I was faced that this responsibility is not being received equally as we age. It is still a choice. It remains a deliberate act insofar as one is willing to go through the rigorous act of self-examination up to the point of critically thinking about their own biases. I think I could have helped my friend to examine his own biases that surround his arguments but I didn't because that would take some time and I did not have the energy and patience to go through that process because that happened way past my bedtime. To me, it felt like I needed to choose the least amount of words I can think of to shut the conversation down. I really didn't feel like it so I just threw every possible counterarguments I can think of until I was able to shift the conversation to a different topic.

So I am thinking about my own expectations with others. Is it too much to demand to people beyond the age of 25 to at least have a better framework of thought that can elevate adult conversations away from mere gossip. At this point I am not entirely sure. It may be a gap in experience or intellectual wavelength and it is possible that I am just barking at the wrong tree. They may not even be the type of people that I must look for these kinds of conversations. But there was really something in the utterance that made me lose my cool and skip the part when I would always try to take the empathic route.

To be fair, I can also see myself on the other end, where I am the type of person I also wouldn't like to be left alone with and be forced into a conversation. I might just blow everything out of proportion and take the conversation somewhere unpredictable and ruin the mood for everyone.