I am generally a conflict aversive person, but conflict is difficult avoid when dealing with people with different value systems. In my case not at the same time, luckily, but it is a great deal frustrating to have some of your friends tell you one thing, and your parents another, and then both of them get mad at you for listening to the other at a given moment. Or as one person puts it, I don't have a "spine" and hence give in too easily to whoever I happen to be talking to first, and then the moment I get criticized I switch gears and the act of flip-flopping itself frustrates both parties.
I'll admit, I do tend to give in too easily - it's been in my nature growing up to listen to people, and generally I don't blatantly argue against them unless I have a solid reason not to. Unfortunately, I suck at coming up with these reasons on the spot (like said before, good lord if I ever get involved in a debate), and it usually takes some time after the fact for me to be able to articulate my point, by which point it's usually too late anyway. It's similar to why I always took forever on in-class essays.
Exhibit A:
One time I went to visit a friend's church, which happened to be Baptist (or at least had Baptist in its name), and upon finding out, the parents had choice words to say.
P: Don't go to a Baptist Church. Go to a Presbyterian or non-denominational; Baptist is bad.
Me: But it doesn't matter; they're all not really that different.
P: No, they ARE different. They're called Baptist for a reason; their beliefs are different. You should know what they believe.
Me: [silence because I have nothing to say]
As is usual with my parents when I argue with them, they technically make good points but those points happen to be off in the given context. If I had better split-second wits, I could have pointed out that:
- They don't actually know what the difference between a Presbyterian and a Baptist is themselves.
- The primary distinction of Baptists - that they practice adult baptism by immersion as opposed to infant baptism, the latter of which could be found in a Presbyterian church, for doctrinal reasons - is not something that they would have issue with. Well, maybe the underlying doctrinal reasons for this are what they're getting at, but these are the same reasons used by most of the non-denominational churches I've been to, including the one that they go to. Speaking of which...
- The non-denominational church they go to has more in common with a Baptist church than a Presbyterian church in America. (The head pastor at the time was from West Virginia, which happens to have a higher Baptist population so the influence is present.) If we went to an actual Presbyterian church, we'd be seeing more liturgical services - although the more modern versions of both probably wouldn't differ as much.
But I couldn't think of these at the spur of the moment so I just stopped talking. And of course several months later they had to ask me what Presbyterian meant. sigh.
Of course, this is an example where I actually could've argued back with points that might make sense to them. In other cases, the points that I would come up with don't mesh with their value system at all, so the arguments don't really go anywhere since there's no reasonable way of convincing them outright of blatantly defying what they say, which I don't particularly enjoy doing at all.
Exhibit B:
So I got a new car a few months ago (Honda Accord EXL v6), and while most people have been cool with it, I've gotten a few particularly different responses:
1. Friend A: THANK YOU!
(explanation: other person we both know purposefully bought a cheaper car, and Friend A doesn't understand why you wouldn't buy luxury car if you could afford it.)
2. Friend B: EXL? Seriously?
Me: Only one the v6 came in.
Friend B: Why the fuck do you need a v6? You granny driver. [this said while I'm driving.]
Of course, I feel less inclined to listen to someone while I'm being insulted, even if what they say has some truth behind it (granny: I don't generally exceed 80 on the freeway... partly because I don't trust my skills at faster speeds. Friend B can attest to this. But still, I didn't respond because I had no interest in starting an argument while driving.)
3. And of course the parents wanted me to not only buy a v6 (reasoning: for the hills in SF. though I imagine a v4 would handle it fine, but no, I can't argue with someone who cares about cars 100x more than I do), but with a nav, and I had to argue with them for a couple of phone calls that I didn't want to pay 2k for a product that I wouldn't use.
Mom: But I would use it!
Me: And I'm the one driving 99% of the time.
After finally winning on this point, I didn't feel like arguing any further past with them, nor did I care enough about the price difference between a v4 and v6. (And to be honest, I actually like my car.)
All three parties on this point come from completely different financial backgrounds, which is why their responses happen to be so different from each other, but the negative ones are really aggravating to deal with anyway.
For the record, Exhibit B is not something I want to talk about anymore, so pardon me if I brush it off in the future. I'm just sick and tired of being judged by people.
Anyway, back to sleep. (it's still 6 AM here - early wakers, no.)
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