Everyone wants to be right

“What an odd thing to post.”
“Can you try not being stupid?”
“I hope you lose your job.”
“It doesn’t matter, I am right.”

This is only a fraction of the comments that randoms of the internet have left me over the years — over disagreement.  

Strange, how quickly a sentence becomes a weapon when certainty sharpens its edge. I’m not fazed anymore. On and offline, you’ll often meet these kinds of people. They can be your own “friends” or people you will meet one day who are willing to defy the very concept of what an opinion is; dressing it up as truth, parading it as fact, daring anyone who questions it.

It is one thing to defend your views, your perspective — to stand in it firmly, even proudly, despite knowing there’s a pile of evidence against it or too much noise of disagreement — and it is another thing entirely to crown it “an unquestionable fact,” knowing it is not.

That’s where people get stuck.
That’s where dialogue dies for me.
That’s where I draw the line.

Because I’m going to need a lot of evidence and hella more civility. But oftentimes it doesn’t go that way. People get really passionate about their views and their lies. They’re willing to go as far as fabricating information just to prove a point. Somewhere along the way, we stopped listening to understand and started listening to reload.

I try. I really do try to understand where everyone is coming from, to back my words with something solid, to bring proof to a conversation when I invite it to be one. To stay mindful. Aware. Informed.

But expectation is not the same for everyone. It is a fragile thing, and I’ve learned not to place it in crowded rooms or comment sections. I protect my space now. Because here is a fact: a real one, ironically enough:

Everyone wants to be right.

And sometimes, it is not to teach or learn. Not to expand anyone’s views or open minds. Not to sit in the discomfort of maybe — just maybe — I’m being wrong. Oh, no. Sometimes, everyone wants to be right just to be right. Jut to…win.

I won’t ever understand that behavior. 

And when the time comes to prove their point, to carry the weight of their certainty, and even arrogance, with something more than a loud mouth and overbearing personality, most people collapse under it.

Loud, but hollow. Certain, but unsteady.

And yet when you bring all the facts to the table, they will dare say it again, with the same conviction: 

“No, I am right.”