Nathe says he’s not trying to annoy me. (This is how it always starts.)
He says he values my opinion and just wants to know what I think about these absolutely ridiculous and vindictive diatribes imagined by people with agendas I wouldn’t even want to understand.
Nathe and I are polar opposites in our politics, our morals, and our general outlooks on life, but he continues to insist on sending me videos and articles about every ridiculous conspiracy theory against the presidential candidate he abhors and knows that I support.
I cannot politely get him to stop.
He simply will not cease the near constant barrage.
I’ve tried responding, countering their/his assertions.
This is exactly what he wants, to argue, to verbally spar with me or, even better, debate in written form so he can pore over every line and spend endless paragraphs pointing out my naiveté and ignorance.
He wants to fight, maybe needs to fight.
He needs to be right, needs to win, and have me tell him so.
I’ve tried not responding and I’ve tried responding in carefully worded “agreements” that actually aren’t agreement at all,
just cryptically ambiguous enough for him to misunderstand and assume I agree and he’s won.
Both tactics just encourage him to send me more crapmail.
Every email is a letterbomb, an exhausting exercise. So much emotion involved for me in deciding how to handle it, how to answer the latest stupidity without pissing him off again.
See, Nathe loves to argue. He revels in being a bully. He will espouse any view, whether he believes it or not, for the fun of shouting you down. He never stops until the situation finally blows up and then he claims it’s not his fault if you’re too emotional or too sensitive or too immature to discuss things calmly logically.
He’s bullied me into these political exchanges before, a lot.
The last time, in the spring, a perfectly nice night out to the movies ended with him not speaking to me for months. All because he badgered me until I finally felt so damn trapped by his relentless assholery that I finally snarked back, hard, and he stopped talking to me.
I don’t like being forced to bite back.
I take no joy in being nasty.
Unlike Nathe, I don’t hurt people, especially people I care for, just for the fun of it.
Snapping back at him hurt me a hell of a lot more than it affronted him, but, oh, his punishment, the emotional silence that followed, the vacation from conflict and being baited, was almost worth the confrontation.
In response to the fifth round of trying not to discuss a hate-inspired obviously photoshopped picture that he swears is 100% genuine and proves one of the ruder and more insulting conspiracy theories, I sighed.
I can’t let him continue, no matter how much fun he gets from it.
It’s destroying my calm, mostly because I’m trying to be civil and not hurt his feelings when he obviously has no concern for mine.
So I tried a different tactic today -
only slightly exaggerated honesty.
I responded with this letter.
“Nathe -
I don’t want to upset you
- honestly -
but I’m really just not interested in continuing this conversation.
Here’s my take on things.
This is not about you, so please don’t take offense.
I’m just letting you in on how I feel
and why I can’t respond to anything political anymore.
I am completely burnt out on this election,
want it over and done with.
I am overfull with disappointment and disillusionment.
I’m not interested in
her health,
his misogyny,
her emails,
his taxes,
her husband,
his wife,
her foundation,
his university,
her likability level,
his childish lies that he won’t acknowledge even in the face of absolute proof,
her political subterfuge -
All of it.
I am absolutely worn down by disgust at how the entire process has been perverted.
The system has been fatally gamed.
It cannot recover.
There is no political debate possible at this point.
The “conversation” has devolved to a point where it is all wasted effort.
Argument which can accomplish nothing holds no interest for me.
I don’t enjoy listening to people who are blatantly lying at worst
or simply delusional at best. (What a sorry at best.)
The level of incivility that has become normal is unspeakably offensive to me.
Even people I respect as intelligent and moral are saying
things that make me cringe,
things that I could not have imagined them thinking.
I just don’t want to know any more.
So I’m done.
I know for whom I will vote.
I know why.
I am confident in both the correctness of my choice
and my motives for making that choice.
I know that nothing I say can change the opinion of any one else,
not in this race.
I have no need and no heart to attempt the impossible.
I am finished discussing politics and anything related to politics with anyone.
I have better things to do with my mind and my emotions.
It’s a matter of preserving my optimism and my opinion about the basic nature of people.”
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