People Who Have Strong Opinions About Everything
You may think it hypocritical for someone with a Page of Rage to criticise people who have strong opinions about everything, but that is not so. I only hold strong opinions about things that make me apoplectic. There are any number of things in my everyday life which peeve me, but I let pass. There are any number of things which I like, but I don’t tell you you’re wrong and force-feed you statistics to back up my spurious claims.
If someone at work offers me a drink, but gets my request wrong, I utter not a word. The way I look at it, I would have nothing but for that person, so I should be grateful. If I trip over a raised paving slab, I don’t berate the gods – everyone trips at some point. But there are some people – some people who seem to feel the need to shout out about absolutely everything. All they are saying is, ‘look at me, listen to me – I’ve got such interesting opinions on everything’. But they haven’t. They haven’t at all.
You know these people. If they can’t find something of theirs for five minutes, they stop everyone, call in the police and practically break down in tears. If somebody does something slightly incorrectly, like leaving a door ajar, they shout (to themselves) about ‘how hard is it to shut a door’ and make a weird angry, disapproving sigh sound. A kind of forceful exhalation that lets everyone know that they’re all incompetent door-openers and that this person should have their arse kissed my God.
I know someone annoying. There is always a radio on when I’m with this person. Occasionally on this radio, they report the news. I dread the news. Every item is an open-armed invitation to this person to say something moronic and needless. One headline concerned the kidnap and rape of a child. There is nothing more despicable than that and there’s the thing – everybody knows that. Who on God’s green earth feels it necessary to open their mouth and say: “That’s disgusting”, in a sneering tone of voice. “I can’t stand things like that”. Of course you can’t. What are you trying to tell us?
What they’re actually trying to tell you is not that child-rape is disgusting, that’s just the way they paint it. What they’re trying to tell you is that they are an amazingly moral person, inhabiting a moral plain far above us mere mortals – a plain where child abuse is frowned upon.
If you don’t have anything to say, don’t open your mouth. Are you telling us that child abuse is bad? If so, we know that. There are going to be news items like that on a regular basis. It’s a sad fact, but it’s true. Please don’t comment on them.
The person with opinions about everything doesn’t stop at commenting on head-stabbingly obvious events though. Oh no no. They have strong opinions about things of which they don’t have the faintest grasp and they’re just daring you to haul them up on it, so they can unleash more of their deranged and ill-thought-out wisdom in an argument. They love arguments. Don’t let them trap you. They don’t deserve the vindication or the attention.
Another sample case: The news item concerned a suicide bomb on a police station in Baghdad.
“They complain about us, but they’re bombing themselves.”
Sometimes I try and deduce whether there’s any aspect of that that doesn’t annoy, but all the blood runs straight to my rage-vein in the side of my head and prevents me from thinking clearly and non-aggressively.
What do you mean? Just, what… do you mean? Are you trying to say that all Iraqi people – that is, every last one – has some collective Borg-like conscience whereby they only have one opinion about things between them, be they Sunni, Shi’a or otherwise? And on top of that, that they have some communal urge for self-harm? Are they enjoying bombing themselves? Who would bomb themselves, you retard? Finally, since when has complaining about British and American troops meant that you can’t engage in any violent practices? I have a couple of questions that I would like answering about the Abu Ghraib facility. Does this mean that I can’t hole-punch your eyelids whenever the news comes on?
It’s enough to make you seek out their house, break in and put shit in their shoes before they get dressed in the morning.
If someone at work offers me a drink, but gets my request wrong, I utter not a word. The way I look at it, I would have nothing but for that person, so I should be grateful. If I trip over a raised paving slab, I don’t berate the gods – everyone trips at some point. But there are some people – some people who seem to feel the need to shout out about absolutely everything. All they are saying is, ‘look at me, listen to me – I’ve got such interesting opinions on everything’. But they haven’t. They haven’t at all.
You know these people. If they can’t find something of theirs for five minutes, they stop everyone, call in the police and practically break down in tears. If somebody does something slightly incorrectly, like leaving a door ajar, they shout (to themselves) about ‘how hard is it to shut a door’ and make a weird angry, disapproving sigh sound. A kind of forceful exhalation that lets everyone know that they’re all incompetent door-openers and that this person should have their arse kissed my God.
I know someone annoying. There is always a radio on when I’m with this person. Occasionally on this radio, they report the news. I dread the news. Every item is an open-armed invitation to this person to say something moronic and needless. One headline concerned the kidnap and rape of a child. There is nothing more despicable than that and there’s the thing – everybody knows that. Who on God’s green earth feels it necessary to open their mouth and say: “That’s disgusting”, in a sneering tone of voice. “I can’t stand things like that”. Of course you can’t. What are you trying to tell us?
What they’re actually trying to tell you is not that child-rape is disgusting, that’s just the way they paint it. What they’re trying to tell you is that they are an amazingly moral person, inhabiting a moral plain far above us mere mortals – a plain where child abuse is frowned upon.
If you don’t have anything to say, don’t open your mouth. Are you telling us that child abuse is bad? If so, we know that. There are going to be news items like that on a regular basis. It’s a sad fact, but it’s true. Please don’t comment on them.
The person with opinions about everything doesn’t stop at commenting on head-stabbingly obvious events though. Oh no no. They have strong opinions about things of which they don’t have the faintest grasp and they’re just daring you to haul them up on it, so they can unleash more of their deranged and ill-thought-out wisdom in an argument. They love arguments. Don’t let them trap you. They don’t deserve the vindication or the attention.
Another sample case: The news item concerned a suicide bomb on a police station in Baghdad.
“They complain about us, but they’re bombing themselves.”
Sometimes I try and deduce whether there’s any aspect of that that doesn’t annoy, but all the blood runs straight to my rage-vein in the side of my head and prevents me from thinking clearly and non-aggressively.
What do you mean? Just, what… do you mean? Are you trying to say that all Iraqi people – that is, every last one – has some collective Borg-like conscience whereby they only have one opinion about things between them, be they Sunni, Shi’a or otherwise? And on top of that, that they have some communal urge for self-harm? Are they enjoying bombing themselves? Who would bomb themselves, you retard? Finally, since when has complaining about British and American troops meant that you can’t engage in any violent practices? I have a couple of questions that I would like answering about the Abu Ghraib facility. Does this mean that I can’t hole-punch your eyelids whenever the news comes on?
It’s enough to make you seek out their house, break in and put shit in their shoes before they get dressed in the morning.
posted by Blue and Brown | 1:53 AM
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