Backstory

Wednesday July 15, 2015

Every time I speak there is a conflict. Sometimes it's because I a weird and my ideas are different, but usually it's because I play the devils advocate. I have my own strong opinions but I keep them to myself. However what I've found to be the most internally conflicting situations are deep conversations with people I care about. These conversations usually involves marriage, religion, morals, ethics, social or economic policy, social norms, things of that nature. I like to think of myself as open minded and I like to think of everyone else as not having fully tested their own ideals. Thus, what I am trying to do is help them to solidify their ideas, this often leads to solidifying my own as well. It's a bit like testing for edge cases in programming, and it drives those close to me "up the wall".

One Conflict I can recall in particular was about my ex-girlfriend's need to know everything I was doing or had done, before anyone else had the opportunity to tell her. For example If I were go to the movies with a friend. Before that friend tells her we went to the movies together, I would have to tell her first. What happened was that this desire of her's drove me away, not because I didn't want to tell her things but because I didn't understand the reasoning behind the way she wanted to hear them.

The source of the conflict was essentially her hearing things about me hadn't told her first hand. I felt helpless in the situation because not only cold I not control what others told her and/or when they did, but also because I could not get her to see my point of view. I eventually broke off the relationship with her. This however was only a temporary solution. Because of course we wanted to remain "friends". If I could go back I think I'd pass on the opportunity. I feel that nothing I could have said or done differently, at that moment, would have changed the ultimate outcome. what I learned from this experience is that, if nothing else, time will resolve almost all conflicts, also that distance can give you a great perspective with which to judge past and current conflicting situations.

if you asked me today to break down the conflict into psuedocode this is what I would say: