The oceanography test I took today turned out to be less horrifically difficult than I was anticipating. Still, there are answers I'm uncertain about.

After class I discussed some of the questions with Alice. Perhaps a mistake on my part...

When you disagree with her on something academic like this, or even sometimes things that are abstract, she has this way of talking that gives the impression that she's angry at you for being so stupid. It's a mixture of condescension and... impatience, I guess. Like she's impatient with you because you're wasting her time with your stupidity and your ignorance.

I don't think she realizes how she comes off. Sometimes I feel like she sees the world in black and white; that everything is categorized into "I'm right" and "you're wrong." I know it's not like that though. She acknowledges that people have their own opinions, and that varying states of truth and right-ness exist.

Still, her tone implies otherwise.

Perhaps I'm reading into this too much. Regardless, I've faced the same contemptuous, condescending, "this is how things work, I can't believe I have to explain this to you" tone time after time, and I always feel the same way about it.

She uses it when she thinks I don't understand something, or that I'm doing something wrong. For instance, when I said I didn't want my children to play needlessly violent video games, she went on this long tirade about how I'll be depriving them and how they'll be ridiculed at school. The whole time, she assumed I was talking about middle school aged kids, when I meant elementary schoolers. She'll interpret things a certain way and then rant about them, implicitly accusing me of ignorance or naivet� when she decides that my train of thought, as she believes she understands it, is objectionable.

A lot of people who interact with us together remark that it's amazing we can be friends when we're so different. I often wonder myself how it's possible.

On the subject of child rearing:

I don't want to spoil my children, so I don't plan on buying them bunches of things they don't need.
-She interprets this as me treating them like we live in a third world country and depriving them of happiness.

In my own experience, children are easily influenced by media, but are unlikely to realize it. (I almost stabbed my uncle with a fork because I saw Shirley Temple do it to a bad guy in a video) For this reason, I don't want my kids to be exposed to violent video games/movies until they have good enough judgement to not copy behaviors that could really harm someone. (I didn't really understand that certain things would actually hurt people when I was younger)
-She interpreted this as me being overprotective and a helicopter parent, and ranted for a very long time about how I was going to shelter my kids so much that they would be incapable of doing anything... And then I said "ELEMENTARY SCHOOLERS?" and she said "ohhh, I thought you meant like, middle school kids" and laughed.

I know that various factors have contributed to me having a short temper as of late, but I'm really tired of feeling like I'm being talked down to and like my opinion isn't being respected. It feels like we're not just on different pages, but on different pages of different books. I'm frustrated and tired, and sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who has problems with our friendship. It seems like all the good feelings I had towards her last year at this time are just gone, replaced by exhaustion and irritability and a modicum of contempt for what I perceive as shallow materialism. She's starting to stand for all these things I hate, all these things I tried to escape from when I went to New York.

Is the problem just me?

I don't think it's just you.. sometimes things like this happen, not because they intentionally want to make you feel small. Sometimes you don't get why that person doesn't get it and that person doesn't want to explain why so you end up having to explain something over and over again so it gets a little frustrating...
» Nuttz on 2011-06-01 04:28:06

When you disagree with her on something academic like this, or even sometimes things that are abstract, she has this way of talking that gives the impression that she's angry at you for being so stupid. It's a mixture of condescension and... impatience, I guess. Like she's impatient with you because you're wasting her time with your stupidity and your ignorance.


I feel th exact same way about my best friend. It's getting under my skin more and more though

Also, nice transition to child bearing.
» undisputed on 2011-06-01 01:20:14

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