Not 24 hours later, I ended up arguing with Mr. Kat 2.0 again and I blame myself 100%. First, I shouldn’t have answered the phone at all when I saw the number on caller ID; I was at work, I was tired and frankly, I was still irritated at him from yesterday, so I shouldn’t have taken the call. Second, I can’t believe I fell right into yet another dispute when I know better than to even engage in it in the first place.
Here’s a sample of the irrational conversation from today:
Me: It’s your dog.
Him: He was our dog.
Me: No, you had him before we were even dating, before you even knew me, thus he’s your dog. Take responsibility for him. (I’m calm at this point, completely factual. Logic is my friend!)
Him: Well, you kept the storage building.
Me: What? What the f-ing hell are you even talking about? (I’m a little irritated at the new topic, but I’m not mad. I cuss all day long, this use of ‘f-ing hell’ was merely emphasizing that I have no idea what he’s talking about)
Him: You kept the storage building, and that should be mine.
Me: What does that have to do with the dog? (I’m trying to find the logic here, even though I know there really is none to be found!)
Him: I think I paid more for the storage building than you did.
Me: (this is the part where I should’ve stopped the conversation because see how he changed the subject from the dog to something else completely random out of thin air? where did this topic even come from? random topics in mid-discussion to distract me are so annoying, but I know this trick of his and should’ve just hung up) No, you didn’t, I have the check to prove what I paid but I don’t care about the money. If you want it, please take it, move the damn building already! (see, at this point, I’m officially pissed, because his whining about the storage building has gone on for 18 months, and every time, I’ve said come get it if you will shut up because I’d much much much rather have peace than any storage building…but there’s no sport in taking the building, is there? It’s only fun for him if he gets to randomly argue with me about it)
Him: Why are you always so mad at me?
Me: ARG! (the conversation that followed was infused with a ridiculous number of angry obscenities flying from my mouth before I hung up in disgust, so we’ll just sum it up with ARG!)
So. Shame on me for getting mired in the most idiotic of disputes, shame on me for falling for the random change of topic to turn nothing at all into an argument, shame on me. I will do better next time; I will let voicemail pick up…and if I must talk to him, then I will try to keep the conversation focused and calm, not letting him digress into other conversational hot buttons just to stir up a fight out of thin air. Above all, I will be grateful that he’s the only person that I argue so nastily with on the whole planet and I will be grateful that we don’t live together anymore, ever again, hallelujah for that.