Discover more from Out Over My Skis
For the majority of my readers, this piece will be new. Longtime readers will recognize it something I published almost exactly a year ago, while on an extended visit to Albuquerque, New Mexico. In revising it, I’m trying to put into practice some of my evolving thinking about the craft of the personal essay … specifically about the tension between exploring and revealing the self, while simultaneously effacing the self to enable the reader to find themselves in the story. When this works well, my intent is that it feels as reciprocal as a good friendship.
The other day, while walking along the Rio Grande River in Albuquerque, I texted my friend Jeremy. Jeremy’s the guy who got me into birding, and we sometimes share fun sightings with each other:
Not the best picture yet, but the Rio Grande is crawling with sandhill cranes.
Six minutes later he responded:
Sandhill Cranes right?
“What the hell?,” I immediately thought and I may have even said it out loud, since I was walking alone. “Did I not just say Sandhill Cranes? Why are you asking this question?”
I looked back at my message and I noticed I hadn’t capitalized Sandhill Cranes, and I thought, “Jesus K. Christ, is he really calling out for not capitalizing the bird name? Am I being corrected, for fuck’s sake?”
I was spinning myself up, putting intentions in his head, thinking up snarky replies, and getting myself all primed to fight, when suddenly I recalled the phrase that saved my marriage. 25 years ago.
You see, back in the late 1990s, I had this little problem. I call it “assholism.” I named it that because whenever I showed symptoms, Sara said, “You know, you can be a real asshole.” She was saying it a lot back in those days. Enough so that one day, shortly after one of my episodes, she said to me, “You know Tom, it’s about time you decide which you want more: to be an asshole or to stay married to me. Because you can’t have both.”
That froze me in my tracks. I can see myself standing in the kitchen of the house we were renting on Avenue C in Snohomish, the house we wanted to buy—despite the floors smelling of cat piss, despite the sketchy foundation—but couldn’t because our landlord had such an inflated sense of its worth. And I knew right then and there that Sara was dead serious and it was high time I got a handle on my little problem. But how?
My affliction looked like this: I thought I was right about everything—EVERY goddamned thing—and I needed the people around me to know it. Now, I was a high-functioning asshole, so most of the world saw me as a smart, affable guy who could be a bit of a know-it-all. I didn’t lord being right over people, unless they tried too hard to be right, in which case I could be … cutting.
But with Sara, who I loved most, I did not hold back. I never hesitated to let her know when something she did wasn’t up to snuff (my snuff; I was making the rules). “You parked too close to the fence,” I might say. Or “You stacked the plates wrong again.” And to make it worse, if she disagreed or countered me, I’d insist I was right and bear down on the issue. Everything was a competition, and I needed to win. Crap like that. Constantly. And insufficiently leavened with real loving appreciation and kindness.1 That was my disorder. I am not proud of it.
Luckily, I knew that I wanted to stay married to Sara way more than I wanted to be an asshole, so I started to see a counselor named Chuck Devore in Mukilteo, Washington. I saw him for several months, usually once a week. He’d say smart-ass counselor things like, “Do you think you’re in competition with your wife?,” “Tom, do you really think you’re right all the time,” or “Do you think it’s possible you can learn from others?” Honestly, it’s hard for me to remember a lot of the details of our time together. All I know is when I was done, I had made real progress in curbing my affliction and I now had a magic saying that I could use whenever I was about to do something assholistic. All I had to do was to say “I’m confused,” either to myself (most often) or to the person I was about to be an asshole to, and it was like waving a magic wand to defuse the situation.
Let me tell you how this magic phrase works. In the past, when I found myself aggravated or irritated with someone, for example if I thought they parked poorly or used a word incorrectly or (god forbid) criticized me for not capitalizing a bird name, that would push my red button and I’d, you know, be an asshole.
But thanks to Chuck, I learned to see my competitive, controlling tendencies coming on, before they caused any damage, and I’d short-circuit the potential conflict by saying to myself, “I’m confused … does it matter how Sara parked? Does it matter that they used the wrong word? Do you even know if Jeremy had a problem with your capitalization?” I’d identify whether there was another way to understand the issue, and also whether it mattered enough to be an asshole about it. And I’ll tell you, 99% of the time, it was easy to find ways to avoid conflict.
The great thing about this phrase is that it works equally well when I use it with others. For example, if I suspect that somebody is being an asshole to me, as I wondered about Jeremy, I can say to them “I’m confused” and since this is not confrontational or angry, it’s very easy for them to explain themselves. It eliminates competition and encourages mutual understanding. I used this version of my magic phrase all the time in the workplace, and I counseled others to use it as well, as a means of sorting out work-related conflicts. I can’t remember a single time when deploying the phrase “I’m confused” made things worse.
With Jeremy, I first used “I’m confused” on myself, asking myself if I was sure that Jeremy was criticizing me or if maybe I needed to clarify first. Then, I used “I’m confused” with him:
Isn’t that what I said? I’m confused
To his great credit, Jeremy replied:
My bad, all I saw was “not the best picture y”
And he included a screenshot of our exchange so I could see what he meant. Due to a technical glitch, he didn’t see me write “sandhill cranes,” all he saw was a very distant picture of birds and he threw out a guess! It made perfect sense.
I quickly shared with Jeremy a screenshot of my end of the conversation, and commented:
That is so weird that Apple and Android just can’t communicate better.
It wasn’t the first time that our working off different operating systems had messed with our communication. Jeremy replied:
Indeed! Who knows.
And there it was: deploying “I’m confused” had saved me from being a jerk and revealed a simple miscommunication. This wasn’t a competition; it was a friendly conversation. Conflict avoided! I laughed and wrote:
At first, I thought are you really fucking correcting my capitalization? 😀
Jeremy and I get each other, at least partly. He soon replied:
Ha! Even for pedants like us that would be too much.
You gotta love Jeremy.
And you gotta love the phrase “I’m confused.” I sure do. After all, it’s been saving me from assholism since 1998.
Do you have a phrase or a bit of self-talk that saves you from your demons, maybe keeps you from succumbing to your own little affliction? Hell, do you have a phrase that saved your marriage? I’d love to hear what it is and how it works.
And if you know someone who is suffering from assholism, by all means send them this story. Maybe it will help.
This is a slightly different problem, one I’ll get into at some point.
Interesting. As it happens I am almost always right, too! But I'm not touchy about it.
But marriage is all about compatibility, and luckily I married an equal asshole: if I say the dinner in delicious tonight, she cuts right in with: "So are you saying that last nights dinner wasn't up to my usual standards"?! Same with flowers and chocolates: like many tough Scottish women she regards peace offerings with waspish suspicion!
Her standard response to being found wrong on anything is to threaten to leave, which is pure bluff, but she cant resist saying it. I'd describe our relationship as lively and argumentative at times, but the rest of the time we are brilliant, and generally we give as good as we get. Take the rough with the smooth, eh?
We've been together for 36 years, so it must work, and its seldom dull. I would hate a dull marriage!
I love this and will be stealing it…I’m often confused in general, so the authenticity will be there :)