Help Pathological Need To Argue

[Anonymoususer1234]

I approach every conversation as if it were a debate. I'm always disagreeing with everyone even when it comes to innocuous details. I don't know why I do it or how to stop. I didn't even realize it was something I did until I got called out for it.

I understand (now) that doing this makes me an awful, draining, person to be around. But whenever I get into a conversation I feel the overwhelming need to correct people and to disagree. Sometimes I don't realize I've done it until after the conversation is over.

What the hell is wrong with me? Am I a narcissist? Or just your run of the mill asshole? How do I stop being such a shitty disagreeable person?

 

[carac]

On a personal level I would say this isn't always a bad things, I often like to play devil's advocate
On a psychological level, maybe you are unconsciously seeking conflict for some unresolved reason

 

[monkeybutts]

I do it too..I don't know why but I do EXACTLY what you just described.
I wish I didn't feel the need/impulse to.
I don't know how to stop it.
For me it comes from and angry place inside I think, so not good on my end.
Maybe we are just assholes lol

 

[ikilog]

Same, but in my case it applies to conversation with friends or something like that, sometimes it making conversations much harder and at the end i feel like a shit and don't deserve to live

 

[Anonymoususer1234]

Same, but in my case it applies to conversation with friends or something like that, sometimes it making conversations much harder and at the end i feel like a shit and don't deserve to live

^Same. I do this to everyone around me, regardless of my relationship to them. It makes everything so much harder than it has to be. I absolutely feel like I don't deserve to live when I act this way. Which is most of the time, to be honest.

 

[ikilog]

^Same. I do this to everyone around me, regardless of my relationship to them. It makes everything so much harder than it has to be. I absolutely feel like I don't deserve to live when I act this way. Which is most of the time, to be honest.

To be honest ,sometimes i just tell myself to stfu and literally just hold everything in myself to not make situation worse, idk why it happens but for me I'm felling it's like a some trigger should be pulled which i still didn't find .

 

[isitjustme]

I approach every conversation as if it were a debate. I'm always disagreeing with everyone even when it comes to innocuous details. I don't know why I do it or how to stop. I didn't even realize it was something I did until I got called out for it.

I understand (now) that doing this makes me an awful, draining, person to be around. But whenever I get into a conversation I feel the overwhelming need to correct people and to disagree. Sometimes I don't realize I've done it until after the conversation is over.

What the hell is wrong with me? Am I a narcissist? Or just your run of the mill asshole? How do I stop being such a shitty disagreeable person?

I mean you have to at least entertain the possibility that everyone is just wrong lol.

It's just a personality trait I think. I have a friend just like that and I absolutely love to run things by him.

Try this: instead of arguing or disagreeing directly, ask questions instead

Person: oh my god all these depressed people should just cheer up!

Anonymoussuer1234: How?

Person: just cheer up! How hard can it be? What do you not understand?

Anonymoususer1234: Right, right. But how?

Person: gosh you are so annoying!

Anonymoususer1234: oh come now, Person, just cheer up!

So whenever you feel like you disagree, frame it as a question instead. Your inquisitive nature will be better received by the wider audience that way.

 

[SexyIncél]

Hmm, there's the possibility that you're wired in a way that is very precise, reasoning from first principles! If so, then you just need lots of good principles, and some ability to calculate when there's some fun benefit to engage with people

You could be powerful if you have a solid base:

1. rooted in certain kinds of (non-dumb) philosophy
2. going through a bit of knowledge of the material world
3. extending to certain kinds of (non-dumb) social/psychological knowlege

So this pathological need to argue — maybe a charitable interpretation is that you just want to learn with the people around you. But alas, they're not able to maintain such a style of thinking for a long time. And sometimes... mistakes may actually lead to nice consequences!

A sadder interpretation is that family or school was very disagreeable, and now they got you doing it, and triggering people around you because it feels like school humilations and they just wanna relaaaax

 

[nessun_nome]

I approach every conversation as if it were a debate. I'm always disagreeing with everyone even when it comes to innocuous details. I don't know why I do it or how to stop. I didn't even realize it was something I did until I got called out for it.

I understand (now) that doing this makes me an awful, draining, person to be around. But whenever I get into a conversation I feel the overwhelming need to correct people and to disagree. Sometimes I don't realize I've done it until after the conversation is over.

What the hell is wrong with me? Am I a narcissist? Or just your run of the mill asshole? How do I stop being such a shitty disagreeable person?

Is it possible that you are on the autistic spectrum and need higher degrees of precision or correctness than others? That is the case with me.

At least you are aware of it. Social situations require compromise and that's difficult for me.

 

[Anonymoususer1234]

Is it possible that you are on the autistic spectrum and need higher degrees of precision or correctness than others? That is the case with me.

At least you are aware of it. Social situations require compromise and that's difficult for me.

That's definitely possible. I do like precision and I definitely have trouble when it comes to compromise. I've had doctors and the like say that they suspect I'm on the spectrum but it's never been confirmed.

 

[FungusButler]

I thought this post was so interesting that I requested an account just so I could respond to it, because I think this is a common problem a lot of people struggle with but is rarely discussed, so thanks for sharing.

I personally feel the need to argue all the time but I very rarely engage in it, so deciding when and why it actually DOES become worth arguing with someone is something that has been on my mind for a while.

After thinking about this for a long time, I believe its worth addressing that being argumentative can likely be caused/aggravated/triggered by many different factors, some of which might be completely rational and some of which might not be.

Some questions I thought could be worth poking at:

• What kinds of topics do you typically find yourself arguing about?
• Are they things you particularly care about, or are you arguing about content that you don't even see much value in yourself?
• Do you feel good while you are arguing your points and then regret it later, or is even the arguing itself not an enjoyable experience for you?

 

[maitreya]

I had a similar problem a while back. I would spend hours arguing with people online to the point where it would affect me mentally and physically. I didn't even care about the topic, I would argue about the most stupid and random topics just for the sake of arguing. I'd drag these arguments on for hours until the other person stopped replying or I felt like I proved a point. I think I acted this way because I had some sort of unconscious desire to interact and talk with people because I knew that I wouldn't be able to do so normally. I'm not the most social person and I've never liked maintaining relationships or just talking to new people in general because I just get bored quickly. I think these arguments were able to compensate for my lack of social interactions while avoiding actual relationships.