Is it Better to be Right than Loved

This seems a big issue for me. When I was a kid, and I'd argue with my dad over something he'd always say: "Is it better to be right or be loved?" The problem is, we were arguing over facts. And usually I was right. When we moved to the street we lived on for most of my childhood, the street name was long with difficult spelling. My dad clearly had a hard time learning to spell it, and he wasn't willing to admit it to me, his 2nd grader. I finally went and learned it from the street sign because he kept changing the spelling (I'm sure inadvertently) and he was really upset that his second grader (whom, I might added, had been placed in the lowest of each tracks and threatened with being held back a year) was correcting him.

"Is it better to be right or loved?" But I was right. There was a fact that could be determined. To me, it isn't important that I'm right, but I have this obsession with getting facts correct. There are known facts, and if our conversation is using facts, we should both have the correct facts. When my facts are wrong, I try to tell everyone I've given the wrong fact to in order to not perpetuate wrong facts. I've been known to e-mail someone six months after a conversation to issue a correction to my facts.

I know that I go farther than most on this, and I wish I didn't care, but it really, really matters to me that facts are correct, and I know it is a turn-off for a lot of men, who don't necessarily want to check their facts when they are going out with someone.

Recently, I was out with a little twit of a man, and he claimed he was interested in global warming (wanting to start a business in order to invest in green technologies) so we started talking and I said something like "without limits in carbon dioxide" and he said "what are you talking about" and I said "well I just don't see the political will to pass meaningful climate change" and he said "but we've already signed on to it" and I said "but Kyoto didn't have any enforcement mechanisms" and he said "but we've agreed to limit carbon dioxide. That debate's over." And I was like "no, we haven't." And he said "Oh, sweetie. You don't know what you're talking about." I said "Well, I'd love to read what you're reading because everything I'm reading is telling me the opposite." But of course I never returned his call after that.

Now, I suppose, it is possible that I'm wrong and we have agreed to limit carbon dioxide and I missed it. But I seriously doubt it. It isn't because I want to be 'right;' it's just that, and I know this sounds arrogant, but I am right. When facts are involved, I tend to know what I know and know what I don't know and I am usually right.

But, when feelings and emotions are involved, I will immediately say I'm wrong; immediately apologize and take the blame. And that's a problem too. Reading through John and my correspondence, I noticed how often I would say "I was wrong, I'm sorry" hoping to make the situation better. And a lot of the time, I wasn't wrong, but I wasn't just saying it. Now, John was probably an extreme case because I really think his memory issues were more extreme than he realized. In the most extreme case, he was really upset that he had sent me an e-mail, reaching out to me about how he felt with his mother's death, and I never responded. When he confronted me about it, I apologized. It probably would have been better for both me and for our relationship if I had said: "John, I never got that e-mail. I've searched my e-mail (and we both use gmail so it is easy to search) and have no record of ever receiving it." At the moment, going through my e-mails felt like I would be confronting him; like I would be trying to be right at the expense of being wrong. So I just accepted blame, hoping to be wrong and be loved.

I think it is important that I stop assuming I'm the one that is always wrong. I don't want to insist on being right, but I think I need to be willing to say my side, instead of just saying: "I'm wrong--love me." And somehow, or other, I need to let go of my obsession for facts. They are useful, but they aren't the be all and end all. Perhaps the "I'd love to read where you read that; now let's talk about something sexy" would be a good thing to say.