Not Wrong
It has to be bad, for me to turn to him for assurance. He often both-sides me and I’m in no mood to have my words slammed back across the room with his own spin on them. He never very-fine-people-on-both-sides me, thank God, but he’s hair-trigger-ready with examples of both sides as hypocritical, corrupt, controlled by money.
The news today was too awful to deal with alone in my echo chamber. Acid tweets scorching holes in my feed, sizzling with outrage. They only amplify my anger and I need to temper it in order to breathe.
I want his opinion on what this means. His position dead center (“I can’t stand either side”) holds the promise of impartiality.
Alarm bells are screaming in my head. I want to yell, “THIS! This is what we’ve been warning would happen! It’s no longer maybe—it’s so much worse!”
Instead, I tell him, “I am extremely upset and need to talk about this. This is bad.”
“You’re not wrong,” he says.
He doesn’t say, “You are right.” You’re not wrong is a concession, a nod. He is trying to do better at hearing me, at understanding what I need. I know he wants to be able to have discussions without me shutting him down. I’m trying, too.
“It’s not illegal everywhere,” he says. “But I agree with you. I’m with you. I get it.”
“You can’t possibly get it. This is about power and subordination and it won’t stop here,” I say, willing my voice to be calm.
“I know. You’re not wrong.”
I figured out recently that tamping down my emotions helps prevent our talks from breaking down. If we can stay in conversation long enough, wade clumsily beyond the churning surf to deeper water, our bodies will eventually soften and float together. The last few times it happened, we emerged feeling closer, as if we’d survived something.
Much more makes sense now that I understand our personality types. I took a quiz and recognized myself as someone whose behavior is motivated by a need for safety. I don’t like my worries dismissed, am undone by uncertainty and injustice. Hate being spoken down to.
He, on the other hand, is driven by curiosity, a compulsive need to be knowledgeable. He hates assumptions, decisions based on emotions.
I feel sometimes like I am missing a layer, like I’m wearing my insides on the surface of my skin. I try to protect myself from exposure to harshness and conflict, while he finds these fascinating to explore—an armchair anthropologist.
He dives into all kinds of pools: freshwater, salty, swampy. Holds his breath, looks around, comes up dripping with other people’s thoughts. Some slide away; others coat his skin with an oily film.
“Is that your opinion or did you pick it up on Reddit?” I said one time, the edge of something sharp poking the inside of my throat.
“I learn from reading all kinds of comments,” he said. He isn’t wrong.
“Things will swing back,” he tells me now. “The media likes to focus only on the bad.”
As he speaks, a piece of me snaps off, floats to the ceiling and hovers like a balloon, observing. Up here, I am untouchable. The quiet is a revelation. My alarm bells continue to shriek but are muted now, a vibration I sense in my belly as I wait and watch—detached, curious—to see what unfolds.
I think: Okay, then. Let’s see how bad it gets. Perversely, this comforts me.
I will either be overreacting and happy to be wrong, or this is the beginning of the end. I feel a smug satisfaction knowing one day he will no longer be able to ignore or explain away what’s happening in front of us. He will have to admit I was right.