Β At some point in every adult life, you end up in a conversation where you realise the other person is not trying to understand you.
They are trying to win you.
This is not the same thing as winning an argument. Winning an argument at least implies there is a shared topic.
Winning you means something else entirely: exhausting you, cornering you, twisting your words until you start second-guessing your own mind β and then, when you finally retreat, acting wounded and bewildered like they have no idea why you are leaving.
I have met this species before.
Tolkien was thrown at me (not wise).
During a discussion, I had Lord of the Rings thrown at me as if it were evidence in court. Not lovingly, not playfully β not in the warm way nerds share nerd things.
It was used as a weapon.
He explained that our disagreement was similar to Gandalf at the Doors of Durin, using the word βsayβ instead of βspeak.β
I had to read his comment multiple times before replying, because it was so confidently stated, and also⦠so wildly irrelevant.
So I replied carefully. Calmly. Like a person attempting to preserve meaning.
I explained that this was not the issue with the riddle at all.
The solution is not about βsayβ versus βspeak. The issue at the Doors of Durin is the translation β and the misunderstanding of what the phrase means:
βSpeak, friend, and enter.β βFriendβ is mellon.
The answer is literally to say the Elvish word for friend: mellon. This is not controversial. This is⦠the scene.
But he did not understand that the issue was translation. He believed the issue was Gandalf choosing the wrong synonym. And when I tried to explain it, he doubled down.
And doubled down.
And doubled down.
He even took photos of the book. He insisted I was wrong, and not in a curious or thoughtful way. He insisted like a man trying to bend reality through volume. At some point he began taking photos of the text, sending them like proof.
Like the book itself was going to rise from the page and testify on his behalf.
And there I was, rereading the same message, trying to respond in a way that preserved language and meaning β while he kept shoving the conversation off the road and into the ditch.
Two hours later (yes, it was that long), he did not surrender.
I did.
There is a particular kind of unkindness that is not shouting, swearing, or overt cruelty.
It is subtler than that.
It is the twisting and gut-turning of your well-placed words β taking something you said with care and precision and using it against you in the ugliest way possible, then insisting you are the one misunderstanding.
It feels like being pushed into a funhouse where mirrors distort everything you say.
You end up defending not your point, but your reality. This battle was not our first.
Which is kind of the point.
Because I started to realise: maybe this is not disagreement. Maybe this volley brings him pleasure.
The sorry part comes after the power part
When I finally retreated, when I finally stopped trying to explain, he suddenly became very sorry and begged me not to go.
It was almost comical.
How do you spend hours grinding someone down, refusing to concede, refusing to soften β and then act shocked when they no longer want to be present?
How do you stab the air around someoneβs words over and over, then weep when they refuse to keep bleeding in front of you?
The answer is simple: Because the argument was never the point. The reaction was.
After I stopped speaking to him, he continued texting me daily. And in those first days something embarrassing happened: I almost felt like I was going through withdrawal.
My hand kept reaching for my phone.
I kept feeling the urge to respond β to clarify, to defend myself, to correct, to explain. As if somewhere inside me, my nervous system had been trained into the belief that if I could just find the perfect sentence, the perfect phrasing, he would finally understand.
But that was never true. He was not confused.
He was feeding.
And I was finally starving the habit.
Muting is not cruelty
After the nausea passed, I muted him.
And I have not looked back.
It is not my responsibility to keep translating reality to someone who keeps weaponizing misunderstanding.
It is not my responsibility to participate in interpretive screaming.
People love to say language is fluid, meaning is subjective, definitions are oppressive β as though dictionaries are tyrants and words should be allowed to mean whatever we need them to mean in the moment.
If we have no shared definitions, there is no shared reality. And without shared reality, communication becomes impossible. All that remains is performance.
Power.
The loudest people wearing crowns.
No, you cannot make up your own definitions for words at any given moment β not if you still expect to be understood. Language relies on a social contract.
And some people do not break that contract because they do not understand it. They break it because it gives them leverage. And that brings this full circle, kids.
This is why words matter.
