I always find this aspect of human nature amusing. In the classroom, I often refer to it as "verbal diarrhea". Often in stressful or highly-charged situations we find our mouths opening, often in obstinate defiance to our brains, and out spurts a comment, which we immediately wish we had never said.
I found myself in this situation on Thursday. Dave and I were in the car. This is often the quintessential scene for such problems as this, especially when one is driving and the other is directing. I was driving (a bad sign), attempting to get out of the ridiculously organised Parramatta Westfield car park. The lane suddenly (in my view anyway) split into two lanes. I moved to to get into the left lane. As I was doing this, Dave pipes up, "There's a car there, which you're going to hit." Now, this is where the verbal diarrhea often bubbles up to the surface. I made a remark about how I didn't like what he said, "it's not what you said, it was how you said it." How many times have we said that?
As soon as I said it, I knew that it was a stupid thing to say and an argument would be forthcoming. Absurdly, I stood my ground, somewhat shaky ground at this point, insisting that somehow Dave was in the wrong and I was in the right. The hole I was digging was getting quite large now. After about 15 minutes of David explaining, in a way that Dave can only do, how ridiculous I was being, and 10 minutes of stubborn silence, I eventually conceded that my comment may have been somewhat unfair. Why do we do this to ourselves?
