This virus has finally pushed me to a place I’ve been heading for awhile. I have exhausted my patience with people who like to argue for the sake of arguing.
You know them. So do I. They go on social media and look for posts to heckle, opportunities to debate online, discussions where they can disagree, at length, eventually concluding with something insulting, or rude, or just plain mean.
Don’t assume I’m only talking about my own political point of view. Those kind of people come from both sides of the aisle, and they’re all, in my opinion, equally annoying.
In my case, one of those people is a relative. My cousin, who is perfectly likeable in person, is an Internet troll. He isn’t content to express his views on his social-media pages. He goes searching for other people’s pages to try to spark a spirited debate, or to mock, or to just contradict for contradiction’s sake.
I just blocked him.
It isn’t a big deal, but it felt like a big deal when I did it. It was something I know won’t go over well, but the point where I put up with deliberately obnoxious behavior because I was taught to be nice is about two months behind me.
My family has people all over the political map, but he’s the one that seeks out disputes. And I’m done with it.
He’s old enough to know better, and I’m too old to put up with it.
The next family reunion, whenever we can do that, could be tense. But I bet he’ll never bring it up. Face-to-face conflict is quite a different story.
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