I also don’t like the external message which is often mixed with resentment and sometimes, downright contempt. Honestly, disapproval or condescension is a turn off. If I have enough bad experiences with someone, I will find a way to get that person out of my life permanently. Even when someone gives me (unasked for) advice and direction lovingly, there is a point when I get tired of it.
For the most part, I think the following things about these people: 1. You are trying to prove you are in control. 2. You are trying to inflate your ego by presenting an idea that you know something that you believe (or hope) I do not know. 3. You are lonely and scared and showing people how ‘smart’ you are is your way of gaining confidence. 4. You want to dominate the conversation with your ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’, thus ensuring attention that you are desperate for. 5. Sometimes, people have strong belief systems wherein they want reassurance thru selling their ideas to others, hoping to gain agreement for their belief systems: for example, parenting and dieting.
No matter how I think about it, I always walk away from these kind of discussions feeling annoyed. I tell people to their face, I don’t need your advice, sometimes I will couch it nicely like “you’re preaching to the choir”, meaning yes, I am already on top of this subject, or I may even be aggressive about it and say “please don’t repeat yourself, I-got-it-in-one.”
Truly, I am losing my patience with this kind of exchange. One person I know is *almost stalking me* so that she can demonstrate how rich and smart she is, another person I know cannot have a conversation with me without telling me that I have made an error and indeed, since this person is so much smarter, they could have told me how to correct myself, in advance of my error. I want people to know that whatever they see in me that makes them want to control and / or convince me of their intelligence – I sincerely apologize. I am not interested in supplanting anyone; or dominating anyone or in any other way competing with anyone.
One-upmanship truly is useless in relationships. The mere fact that I exist, may annoy or upset some people, I can’t and won’t apologize for that! I started this article discussing my internal conversation. My internal conversation is sometimes unworthy. When I make my internal conversation more worthy, then the external conversations are much less likely to annoy me. So there is this: you take care of yourself, stop trying to tell me what and how to live, work, and where to be. In exchange, I promise to work on my internal conversation such that your effect on me, does not force me to get you out of my life permanently.
