Etymology of spontaneous retardation.
Let me just tell you how much I love running on three hours of sleep. I have my quasi-retarded friends to thank for their gradually worsening disputes which finally came to a head last night. We had all planned on not arguing, so instead we decided it was best to settle on talking about non-controversial topics -- like the Middle East, while drinking Rum & Guinness of course.
Keeping in character of past discussions, the problem had nothing to do with the actual point of debate at all, but instead became a dissertation as to why a person shouldn't interrupt (which seems to be the grave-site for just about every drunken conversation the three of us have had for about a year now). Friend A has fairly poor listening skills. So poor, that even though this dissertation has been started in various incarnations all year, from both me and my friend B, Friend A has not let it finish without interrupting. Sometimes claiming things like, "I do NOT interrupt." Or interrupting that he has gotten so much better at not interrupting. Or explaining at length about his mad-uber listening skills which multi-task and process ALL information in his domain. He has actually suggested that our conversations would be much more productive if we all talked at the same time (because obviously, that's better if you're a good listener. Think about it.) The fact appears to be though, that Friend A is conscious of little else other than his own grating voice. Most people remember vivid experiences of their lives, Friend A seems to have notes on a roll of mental toilet paper which he refers to about these events. His recollection of past events seems more like he's remembering his own commentary on the events rather then really remembering the real sequential facts of what happened. None of these personality points are improved by drinking. Not to be misunderstood, Friend A is a good, loyal friend with integrity, imagination, and ambition who has helped me out on many occasions and generally tries to make a bad situation better. But sometimes I just feel like killing him. We've known each other since high school. We didn't really get along until I punched him in the face one day, and we got to know each other during in school suspension (that's another story). I'm not the only one who's felt like committing some act of violence to him. Why, just last week someone who met him three weeks ago was telling me that she felt like killing him for a conversation they had. My response was,"Eh, he does this. Try not to hold it against him."
Friend B certainly possesses his share of personality and social quirks. Probably more, and he'll be the first to call himself an asshole. He can be brutally abrasive, he's never on time (plus he stalls), and although his recollection is often better then even mine, the story he tells is often purposefully misleading, fabrications for entertainment value, or just something to generally provoke anger. His particular, slow to the point dissertation on interruption is designed to drive Friend A completely insane (not that Friend A's any better for falling for it EVERY time).
We've all known each other for over a decade, and have all had our various falling outs. This one was plainly stupid. Friend A used the word "Etymology" in an unusual context. Friend B immediately demands Friend A's definition of the word because it sounded like Bullshit. The definition was nowhere near. He insisted, shouted and interrupted that he knew that this was the definition of the word, swore up and down and insisted i pull up his BLOG as if it's some great reference for looking up words. So I pull up dictionary.com. As soon as I type "Etymolology" He's like, "NO, That's not the word!!" Even though that is what he said, I started checking the suggested "could this word be:" list for what the fuck he could have meant. Amidst the yelling and screaming, Friend A charges at Friend B to be met with three punches to the chin from Friend B. I briefly thought about breaking this up, but I figured this had been a long time in coming and they needed to get it out of their system, so I went back to checking words. I finally stopped it when Friend A had Friend B in a choke hold and was beating him about head. Friend A wasn't at all hurt, while Friend B had bit his tongue fairly badly in the scuffle (causing him to speak like, "Frenze schull en fight." for the rest of the evening. ) So, I told Friend A, that none of the words on the list were this famous, important word. We checked his Blog (bastion of knowledge that it is, and all), and it turns out the word he meant was "Ethnographer" and insisted for the rest of the night that this is what he had said all along (they're just so similar, right?). So of course, this eventually degrades into another fist fight (how else do people sort these things out, ya know?). After that, it turned into a mutual exchange of personal attacks, and then into me and Friend B explaining to Friend A that he has a shitty swiss cheese memory on top of being a lunatic, and his recollection of even his own grating voice was provably distorted from reality. He can't even manage to listen to himself. So he storms out. Leaving me to drive Friend B home when I had to be awake in three hours. He was nice enough to return to pick him up though. I wonder if they killed each other on the ride home.
Grunt.
Keeping in character of past discussions, the problem had nothing to do with the actual point of debate at all, but instead became a dissertation as to why a person shouldn't interrupt (which seems to be the grave-site for just about every drunken conversation the three of us have had for about a year now). Friend A has fairly poor listening skills. So poor, that even though this dissertation has been started in various incarnations all year, from both me and my friend B, Friend A has not let it finish without interrupting. Sometimes claiming things like, "I do NOT interrupt." Or interrupting that he has gotten so much better at not interrupting. Or explaining at length about his mad-uber listening skills which multi-task and process ALL information in his domain. He has actually suggested that our conversations would be much more productive if we all talked at the same time (because obviously, that's better if you're a good listener. Think about it.) The fact appears to be though, that Friend A is conscious of little else other than his own grating voice. Most people remember vivid experiences of their lives, Friend A seems to have notes on a roll of mental toilet paper which he refers to about these events. His recollection of past events seems more like he's remembering his own commentary on the events rather then really remembering the real sequential facts of what happened. None of these personality points are improved by drinking. Not to be misunderstood, Friend A is a good, loyal friend with integrity, imagination, and ambition who has helped me out on many occasions and generally tries to make a bad situation better. But sometimes I just feel like killing him. We've known each other since high school. We didn't really get along until I punched him in the face one day, and we got to know each other during in school suspension (that's another story). I'm not the only one who's felt like committing some act of violence to him. Why, just last week someone who met him three weeks ago was telling me that she felt like killing him for a conversation they had. My response was,"Eh, he does this. Try not to hold it against him."
Friend B certainly possesses his share of personality and social quirks. Probably more, and he'll be the first to call himself an asshole. He can be brutally abrasive, he's never on time (plus he stalls), and although his recollection is often better then even mine, the story he tells is often purposefully misleading, fabrications for entertainment value, or just something to generally provoke anger. His particular, slow to the point dissertation on interruption is designed to drive Friend A completely insane (not that Friend A's any better for falling for it EVERY time).
We've all known each other for over a decade, and have all had our various falling outs. This one was plainly stupid. Friend A used the word "Etymology" in an unusual context. Friend B immediately demands Friend A's definition of the word because it sounded like Bullshit. The definition was nowhere near. He insisted, shouted and interrupted that he knew that this was the definition of the word, swore up and down and insisted i pull up his BLOG as if it's some great reference for looking up words. So I pull up dictionary.com. As soon as I type "Etymolology" He's like, "NO, That's not the word!!" Even though that is what he said, I started checking the suggested "could this word be:" list for what the fuck he could have meant. Amidst the yelling and screaming, Friend A charges at Friend B to be met with three punches to the chin from Friend B. I briefly thought about breaking this up, but I figured this had been a long time in coming and they needed to get it out of their system, so I went back to checking words. I finally stopped it when Friend A had Friend B in a choke hold and was beating him about head. Friend A wasn't at all hurt, while Friend B had bit his tongue fairly badly in the scuffle (causing him to speak like, "Frenze schull en fight." for the rest of the evening. ) So, I told Friend A, that none of the words on the list were this famous, important word. We checked his Blog (bastion of knowledge that it is, and all), and it turns out the word he meant was "Ethnographer" and insisted for the rest of the night that this is what he had said all along (they're just so similar, right?). So of course, this eventually degrades into another fist fight (how else do people sort these things out, ya know?). After that, it turned into a mutual exchange of personal attacks, and then into me and Friend B explaining to Friend A that he has a shitty swiss cheese memory on top of being a lunatic, and his recollection of even his own grating voice was provably distorted from reality. He can't even manage to listen to himself. So he storms out. Leaving me to drive Friend B home when I had to be awake in three hours. He was nice enough to return to pick him up though. I wonder if they killed each other on the ride home.
Grunt.
posted by Drogulus at 11:25 AM
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