For Argument’s Sake??
The Argument. An oral disagreement, a verbal opposition, a contention, sometimes an altercation. A process of reasoning or a series of reasons. A discussion involving differing points of view, a debate. An art form all it’s own. Anyone who’s been in a “serious” relationship, and those of us that haven’t, have probably experienced this situation. However, oft times, the lines are so pungently blurred that the disagreement becomes a fight, the reasonable becomes unreasonable, those differing points become needles that you can’t bear, and the debate becomes an all out war.
Sometimes, in order to further distance ourselves from that face to face argument, we like to have these spats electronically, which usually turns out to be an awful idea. Hiding feelings behind technology is not really the correct way to go, and we’ve all experienced it. The e-War: Text, Chat, Social Network argument, all equally terrible ways that we as lovers get sucked into electronic arguments. This is usually because, as communicators, most people aren’t that great of writers. Let’s think, for a second, about how much gets lost in translation during normal text messages with friends, siblings, sometimes parents, and or lovers. Now take that and multiply it by all the raging emotions going on during an argument and we’re bound see some confusion-like technological sparks fly. However, People lose enough during the conversations that happen in person, the last thing we need is another conversation barrier.
The Upper Hand. The Last Word. The Compromise. The Resolution. During times of duress in a relationship, we may need to question ourselves and those that we are in a relationship with, almost as if it is a system of self checks and balances. Here we should all remember that eloquent phrase ‘Check yourself before you wreck yourself.” What really matters here? Is the argument taking a turn for the worst and can you see it, are you trying to see it? What do you take away from the situation? We as lovers should try to interject with our inner selves and ask these questions, even during the argument. I often find that the answers to these end in love. I’m not saying that all arguments are bad, that would be a farce. However, we should all take into account how we come across in that argument and attempt to become students of the best and most healthy practices , sans manipulation and patronization, that get our point across to our partners. For instance, talking at her vs. talking to her. The line between the two is extremely thin and we should tread carefully here. Oft times ‘how’ you speak to your significant other can be just as important as ‘what’ you are talking about. If you come off the wrong way to start, your point will never reach it’s target. Body language and Mental cues are also largely important when conversing about a sensitive topic in a relationship. Stay current, if the argument gets bad enough, extraneous factors often seep their way into reasoning and you or your lover begin to argue about things that have nothing to do with the current situation. This can be extremely bad and most times makes things much more complicated than they need to be.
The questions remain, how do you know? When your significant other has become the focal point of a terrible existence to you? When is enough, enough? How do we navigate this? So…how do you know? We will take into account the Symbiont vs. Parasite factor. I feel as though a relationship should be symbiotic in a sense. German mycologist Heinrich Anton de Bary would have defined this Symbiosis as “the living together of unlike organisms”. I believe this speaks directly to the Mars vs. Venus phenomenon, where men and women seem like we are sometimes from different planets or a different species altogether. This…situation we have between lovers, is a delicate balance to work with. The recognition of when that balance becomes unhealthy is extremely important to self preservation of mind, body and soul. It is not only important for one person in the relationship to realize this, it is important for both parties involved to recognize the downward spiral and to pull out of it together. If this cannot be accomplished together in a healthy, and I stress *healthy*, manner and/or the other party does not take part in the recognition of when the arguments become too much, or about things that are completely irrelevant to the current situation, then the situation becomes parasitic. We as lovers can recognize the parasitic and the symbiotic relationship in terms of energy or life force. Your significant other should add to your energy, if not balance you out when you’re too high or too low. However, if you are getting the sense that your significant other is sucking that life force out of you like a parasitic tick, then it may be time to either seek relationship help, or explore other options, and I do not mean cheating on your spouse. That would only make matters more complicated.
Lovers I shall leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ. “Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.” The only piece that I’d add is to question yourself along the way, keep yourself in check, before your love decides your fate for you. That is my perspective lovers, and I’m sticking to it.
Love,
D. Layne
D. Layne in Perspective 
Damn Night Train that was rather DEEP…but very tru story…
I like I like!I was watching a commerical the other day that said 1 out of 5 relationships are found/started through social networking. That is fascinating! Technology today allows us to interact and meet as many people as we want, but I wonder if the physical/social interaction is being lost. You bring up a great topic of arguments and the importance of body language and tone. Things that surely get lost through technology, but then I wonder if we lose it with systems such as Skype (especially since now you can do it on the new Iphone 4). We can see each other and talk, but is there still a barrier?I love the symbiont vs. Parasite factor. I think the trick of it all is being able to admit when your wrong. As a society, we are afraid to fail, like a sign of weakness that crosses over into our relationships. We always want to have the last word, even if its a "Whatever" or Chris Brown's "Deuces." The truth is an argument is simply a display of thoughts, concepts, ideas, but we tend to want to put an outcome on the argument in our favor. We all want to seem like intelligent, educated persons with confidence in our ability to articulate and share our "expertise." But some of the most beautiful arguments you'll have is one where challenge is accepted and pre-determined outcomes are null and void. A daily process learned but must be practiced.I enjoyed this D. Layne. Keep it coming! 🙂
I agree completely! The type of argumentative text actually has a name. I believe it's called "TEXT RAGE". You get in such a heated debate that there is no rationalization or reasoning. It's a snowball effect of words pouring out from your mind through your fingers straight through to text w/o thinking. Not good at all. I do not mind texting. However, I prefer talking to someone rather than social networking. I feel you become disassociated with that person and no longer see them as real. You can't truly get to know who that person really is. Because like you said text can be misconstrued and what one person sends you and how you take it is actually forming an opinion about that person which could be a negative one. You then come up with your own idea of that person. Who they are. The kind of person they are. How they act..etc. Now you have created a person that is a figment of your imagination because you came up with your own idea of who they are all through text message. I text but I take talking to someone face to face or over the phone any day!As for arguments over text. That’s a HUGE NO NO!!! That’s a deal breaker all the way. My personal opinion on arguing is that it shouldn’t happen either way. Talk to the person. Listen to the each other. If all you do is argue then you need to walk away from the situation ASAP. To me it's just not acceptable. Rhonda