I'm an Awful Debate Partner

Excerpt from Waiting by William Rochfort

I am a smart girl who talks a lot. As such, I've been called lots of names throughout my life. Social butterfly. Chatterbox. Bossy. Opinionated. Obnoxious. Loud. Pretentious. Petty. Smart. Too smart. Arrogant. Have you ever considered becoming a lawyer?

For a lot of my life, I took offense to certain names. I could hear that they weren't compliments; they stemmed from irritation or jealousy. I prided myself on being the bigger person, on not retaliating, on having kindness alongside my sternness. As I've grown older, however, I've come to realize that, in part, my critics were correct. 

I love talking. I love talking about coffee, dresses, and nail polish, but I also love talking about theology, politics, and ethics. I love exploring what people believe and why, and I love defending what I believe. I have been having conversations with all nature of people for years now. I seek to understand my friends, family, coworkers, and customers. I am excited to hear what they have to say and to watch gears turn as they explore how best to express themselves. 

For a long time, however, my attitude was not one of understanding. I pretended to care what people had to say, pretended the discussion was for our mutual benefit, but really I just wanted to showcase my knowledge and deconstruct arguments. I wanted to be right. I wanted to prove them wrong. I wanted to show how fragile their arguments were. I was treating what should have been a discussion of mutual learning like it was a championship tennis match. 

Once, I spent three hours arguing back and forth on Google Classroom about dinosaurs, evolution, and Noah's Ark. It was a subject that genuinely did interest me, and I had fun with the discussion, but I wasn't involved because I wanted to learn more or because I wanted to understand what the other person believed. I just saw my chance to prove I was right, and I took it. 

"A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,

but only in expressing his opinion." 

- Proverbs 18:2

This prideful posture of always wanting to be right has led me to many a harsh email and many a hurt friend. I didn't realize just how bad I was at the discussions I so loved until last year, when I took a course in dialogue and discussion. 

"The aim of dialogue is not to be right, or to win." I sat in the back of the classroom and nearly laughed before realizing that I had a serious problem. I spent the next six months aiming to become a softer companion and to be more understanding. I had to reorient my whole mindset. It was not about victory or triumph or intelligence. It was about empathy, understanding, and learning. 

This does not mean that I surrender my opinions. It just means that my end goal is different. This is not a competition. I am not here to combat you. I am not here to dominate you. I am here to listen to you, and to grow my own knowledge and empathy through understanding your situation and beliefs. I am here to ask questions for my own understanding and clarity. I am here to be kinder than I was in my younger years, so that, should you choose to ask what I believe, I can share it out of a picnic basket rather than shooting it out of a cannon. 

I am an awful debate partner. Even now, I am constantly reminding myself of my goals. I no longer want to be a winner. I just want to be a friend.