Underneath my yellow skin

I’m the Well, Actually Gal

put that finger away before you hurt someone
Let me tell you….

There’s a meme on the internet called Well, Actually. It’s making fun of a person who likes to go into other people’s conversations on Twitter and correct some nitpicky point that really isn’t germane to the conversation. It was a perfect encapsulation of that annoying person at a party who tells you that avocado is a fruit, not a vegetable as you’re eating a delicious guacamole and joking about getting in an extra serving of veggies for the day. It’s similar to the Someone’s Wrong on the Internet, but not as angrily self-righteous. Like most memes on the internet, however, it quickly morphed into meaning something else. In the case of Well, Actually, people started to label anyone who corrected them on anything as a ‘well, actually’ person. I saw a lot of, “How dare you come into my TL and disrespect me like that?”, and when I’d check, the interloper was actually right. And, it wasn’t some piddling little thing, it was something germane to the first person’s argument. It’s easy to accuse someone of being a ‘well, actually’ person, too, rather than consider the argument being presented. Do I sound a little defensive? If so, it’s because I’m the ‘well, actually’ gal, at least in my head.

A little background. As I wrote yesterday, I was not allowed to show any negative emotions when I was a kid. In addition, I never felt as if my opinion mattered. I can’t say exactly why, but by the time I left for college, I had an abnormal fear of stating my actual opinion. I would agree with whomever I was talking to, or not say anything at all. I went to ridiculous lengths so it wouldn’t look as if I was being disagreeable, and some of that was rooted in my belief that I was responsible for other people’s emotions. I was a shadow person, not really existing in and of myself. That’s not to say that I didn’t have opinions–I did. I have very firm opinions about almost everything, but I kept them to myself. During the second semester of my sophomore year at high school, I started having periods of disassociation in which I would disappear from my body for several minutes at a time. I’d be talking to someone and ‘come to’ a few minutes later, and we’d still be talking, only, I had no idea what I had just said or heard. This also happened while I was driving, and I was very fortunate in that I never got into an accident. I believe that this happened in part because of all the repression I was doing on a daily basis. You cannot suppress every aspect of yourself for an appreciable length of time without suffering some kind of consequence for it. I’m fortunate in that I’ve always had a spark inside of me that refused to be quashed. No matter how hard I tried to put it out, it steadfastly continued to shine. Even during my darkest hours. Even during my deepest depressions. Even when I wanted to die. That little spark kept burning.

Several years back, I made the conscious decision to voice my opinion, at least to my closest friends. I became somewhat of a zealot about it, spouting off much more than was necessary.  The thing is, I also have a mania for telling the truth. Kind of. See, my childhood was filled with untruths, half-truths, and outright lies. I didn’t know what or whom to believe. So, as I got older, I hated it when anyone would lie to me about anything, no matter how small. I don’t out-and-out lie, but I will lie by omission when I feel cornered. So, part of my well, actually mindset is because I feel unstable when I hear lies*. Something in my mind slides out of place, and I don’t always know what is real and what isn’t. That’s part of the reason that I finally decided to speak up instead of always keeping silent.

get offa my lawn!
Shouting at the clouds.

The problem is, I swung too much the other way. I have the tendency to be pedantic, and I get hung up on the minutiae way too much. In other words, I sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture when I get obsessed with a trivial detail. I also get stuck on ‘I’m right’ in an argument to the point where I can’t see the other person’s point of view at all or just let go of the argument. I remember a time when I bought an Alan Rickman videotape** on eBay of something he was in that I’d never seen before. The description said that it was an original videotape, but when I got it, it was actually a copy of a theater performance. Which is illegal. I mentioned it to the seller and asked for my money back, and s/he retorted that it WAS original because she had recorded it herself. We went back and forth several times before S/HE opened up a complaint with eBay. I won,*** but I couldn’t understand why s/he hadn’t seen it my way. I mentioned it to my then-therapist in great detail, wondering what I could have said to make the seller change his/her mind. After I was done, my therapist said with a touch of impatience, “Minna, there’s nothing you could have said to change that person’s mind.” It seems so simple, and, yet, it hit me hard. I was so used to thinking I was responsible for other people’s feelings and that everything was my fault, I had twisted myself in a knot trying to get this person to see my point of view.

I still do that to some extent. If I’m having an argument with someone, and s/he seems to be missing my point, I will try to explain myself in several different ways to see if it makes a difference. I’ll get increased frustrated, but determined to get my point across. Lately, I’ve been making a conscious attempt to pull back when it’s obvious that the other person isn’t going to get what I’m saying or when I no longer have any interest in trying to explain myself. The more distant the other person is, the less time I invest in the argument.  I have a hard time differentiating between shit that doesn’t really need to be corrected and shit that does because to me, everything should be factual. I’ve seen a meme that says, “Would you rather be right or ______?” with the blank being filled in with everything from ‘be happy’ to ‘have friends’ to ‘be at peace’? My immediate response is, “Be right!”, but I’m realizing that I can be right and still let it go. If I’ve stated my opinion a time or ten and the other person isn’t budging, then it’s better for me to say to myself, “I said my piece. It’s enough.” Also, sometimes I’m not right. It’s hard for me to accept, but it’s true. No one is right all the time, and if I want someone else to consider my opinion, I have to do the same for his/hers as well.

you can't tell me i'm wrong
I am right. You are wrong. The end.

This is really difficult for me, by the way. I have tunnel vision when I think I’m right and/or feel like I’m being pushed to believe something I don’t. My tendency is to hunker down behind a fortified wall. I don’t think I’m alone in this, but because of my OCD tendencies, I do it to an extreme. I continue to press my point, even when I know I’m being silly. I can have a voice in my head saying, “OK, you can stop now,” but for some reason, I am almost physically incapable of stopping. I don’t know if it’s a chemical reaction or a ‘going back to my childhood’ reaction, but once I go down that road, it’s incredibly difficult for me to get myself to stop. The trick is to realize I’m doing it before that switch is flipped, but I’m not there yet.

Back to ‘well, actually’. I am doing that constantly in my brain when I see or hear shit that I disagree with. I’ve come to realize that it’s just a mutated version of the negative voices which also reside in my head. Because I am cognizant that this is my problem, I am able to stop myself from correcting people all the time for minor mistakes. Sometimes, though, I feel something I have to say is not a minor correction, but something that actually matters, and then, I want to be able to feel comfortable enough to speak. I think some people, especially online are too eager to shut down any opposition, and ‘well, actually’ has now become a means to do that. If I’m going to be frank, much of the arguments online end up with one side or both trying to shut down the other. There is very little actual argument–only an exchange of insults or stock phrases. “You’re a cis het white man, so you wouldn’t understand.” I see that one much more than I care to remember. Part of my mania for truth means I disdain generalizations as well. I realize that we need them to a certain extent, but it’s frustrating.

I know I’m a bit of an idealist, but it would be nice if people actually discussed the issues rather than just called each other names or tried to score points. I like social media, but sometimes I’m overwhelmed by the dysfunction laid out on display. I have the ability to absorb the negative emotions that other people radiate, and there’s plenty of that on social media as well.  I’ve learned how to put up a wall so I don’t absorb it all, but I still can’t escape some of it seeping into my soul. It’s part of the reason I’ve pulled back on my social media consumption, and I think I need to cut back even more–at least on political social media. When I open up my Twitter in the morning and start reading my TL, my heart starts beating rapidly, and no matter what mood I’m in when I wake up,**** scanning my TL makes it plummet. It’s doom and gloom and/or poutrage dialed up to eleventy all the time, and I’ve noticed that my mood improves when I haven’t checked on my TL for hours.

Trying to have a discourse on Twitter is pointless to me. It seems like Twitter is best for ranting (which I enjoy from time to time) and having your biases confirmed for you. It exacerbates my ‘well, actually’ impulse, and I have to remind myself that it’s OK for people to be wrong on the internet. I also have to remind myself that my opinion won’t matter to most of these people, so I don’t need to waste my breath/fingers. It’s weird because I used to think my opinion doesn’t matter, and that was a bad thing. Now, I think my opinion doesn’t matter, and I’m OK with that. I should amend that statement. It matters to people who care about me and some people on social media who follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook, but that’s about it. I think it’s a good thing to realize in the grand scheme of things, my opinion don’t mean shit. Now, I just need to remind myself of that the next time I’m locked in an argument.

 

 

*It’s one reason I have a hard time listening to Trump.

**Yes, I’m that old.

***Because I was fucking right.

****Cranky because Bitey McBiteFace has taken to bite me to wake me up in the morning ever since I put my boys on a diet.

 

Leave a reply