Some people feel the need to shout to emphasize a point. Whenever I am faced with similiar predicaments, I always maintain a calm manner with regard to dealing with the issue. I am an advocate of the hey-let’s-talk-calmly-and-fix-this-skirmish-diplomatically school of thought.

But I suppose this doesn’t work for most people.

You see, some are brought up where my method is so non-existent, so much so that they never learned how to use it, or never experienced it that they don’t know how to deal with it. They sometimes misread my calmness for a sort of apathy on my part. Truth being told, I stay calm because shouting is too telenovela-ish. Not cool.

I have this (non-romantic) friend who I visited just recently. He is a big shot at some transnational bank. He is a tetragenarian. Anyways, his mom was also there, we ate lunch, us three, and then we left his house to accompany him to his facialist (yeah, you heard it right).

While we were in the car, he said that I should’ve said goodbye to his mom before we left, that it is common courtesy. Moreso, he went through this litany of friends who say goodbye to his mom when they leave his house, how his mom’s days are numbered, that we should recognize that and so on…

I told him, sure. I apologised for not knowing better since we don’t really do that from where I came from. I told him that I will do it next time but he doesn’t have to obsess about the issue since I can’t leave his house twice in ten minutes.

By that I meant that if he wants to know if it’ll happen again, i.e. me just leaving w/o saying goodbye, he would have to wait for the next instance where his mom is there and we are about to leave. I pick up things fast, and I am not very fond of being spoon-fed. I told him that I already got his point, and he won’t have to hammer it any further. I just relayed what my common sense was telling me the whole time.

Then he snapped.

He told me that the point he’s making is something that everyone should know, that my parents are young and probably had a different set values. That what he’s teaching me are the values of the old. That the problem with a hyper-intellectual 23-year-old is the inevitable propensity to feel that he has thought about everything, that we don’t listen.

All while shouting.

It grated to my ears. One thing so petty that warrants attacks on my family and upbringing? I went for the force majeure.

But I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I might just have bruised his ego with the kind of composure I showed. We are all human to begin with. So I maintained my bearing.

I told him,

“Let’s settle it. You told me that I should say g’bye to your mom whenever we’re gonna leave her. I get it. I told you that I got it so that you won’t have to hammer it anymore. By the scheme of things, I suppose you already know that I don’t like people getting redundant. I am not upset at you, but I just wanna make it very clear, that I got your point, I feel it’s valid, and let’s just move on and talk about something more productive. You know me and how I deal with matters. Yes, you are 42, and I am 23. But if we will anonymously write down what we say on paper and make other people read it so check its plausibility, your level of credibility will be no different from mine. We both took logic in UP. You should know and act better than that.”

And then, Silence.