Things my girlfriend and I have argued about

[andrewducker]

I have spent inumerable hours arguing with a variety of girlfriends because I cannot, and will not follow this simple principle (stolen gleefully from Scott Adams' blog:

The biggest relationship mistake you can make is to assume that because you have some special training or knowledge on a topic, that your opinion should be extra important. You could be the world’s most respected expert on insects, for example, but if your mate insists that caterpillars grow into chipmunks, there will be no talking him or her out of it. You could try saying, "I have a doctorate in bugs, I know what I’m talking about" but your mate will hear "I am an overbearing ass pimple who doesn’t know a fly from a suspicious mole."

So forget about how much you know, or how smart you think you are, or how much extra information you might have recently collected. That will not help you. Instead, I offer you the only solution: The WCM Method.

WCM stands for Who Cares Most. If you want your relationship to have a chance, defer all decisions and interpretations of fact to the person who cares the most.

In practice, this will mean that women will make 98% of all the decisions and be "right" 98% of the time. Compared to men, women care more passionately about just about everything. Men mostly scratch what itches and call it good. BOCTAOE.

Many women and some men who read this blog will sharply disagree with my gross generalization. To you I say with all sincerity, "You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking."

See how easy that is?

It's a shame really.  But what can I do - I just got to be me.

Comments

[andrewducker]

No, because I'm not interested in winning conversations by having to be right. I've always been just as happy to be shown to be wrong as to being shown to be right. I want the _conclusion_ to be right, and either I was right (in which case, I win!), or they were right (in which case I'm now right, when I was wrong, so I win!) or neither of us was right, but we both now understand why and what the answer really is (so I win!)

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Let's see. "I've always been just as happy to be shown to be wrong as to being shown to be right".

Right. So. Thinking about all the arguments you've ever had, was the proportion of them in which you were 'shown to be wrong' about the same as the ones where you were 'shown to be right'? More? Less? Bet it's less, right? Do you think that this is

a) because you are a naturally superior being who tends to be right?

or

b) something else?

One of my all time favourite lines from a movie is from _Broadcast News_, where someone says to Holly Hunter "It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room", and she replies "No, it's awful."

[andrewducker]

Depends on the subject. When it comes to coding stuff, I'd put it about 80-20 (or 50-50 when talking to a couple of rather smart guys I know at work). When it comes to emotional stuff, I'd say I was right about 40% of the time. When it comes to other things then it varies dramatically.

I _am_ smart.

I was hired for my smartness, after getting in the 98th percentile on the math scores and the 94th on the English scores at the graduate intake for the company I work for. I'm not boasting, I'm just pointing out that I'm not an idiot, and I do well in comparison to many people.

But that only helps in certain areas. I've learnt a lot from arguments with Lilian, with Erin, with Ed, with people at work, with people on the internet, all over the place. I wouldn't do anywhere as well as I do do if I wasn't taking what I've learned and testing it in discussions with people, and then learning when they point out the bits where I'm being an idiot.