Argue Like You’re on Camera
The difference between an argument and an argument is that in a fight, you say something that you will regret. Things that hurt another person will remain in your mind until they appear again in later battles. Reddit user Valuable_Armadillo has a trick to avoid this: whenever you’re in the heat of an argument, pretend you’re being recorded.
For this trick to work, you need to get the “I’m being recorded” feeling into your head. Imagine the last fight in which you said something you regret. (This won’t be the last time you’ve acted in a righteous rage that still makes you proud. We’re only talking about fights you wish you didn’t have.)
Now imagine that the video camera is pointed at you. Maybe there is a film crew there, or maybe there is a surveillance camera on the wall with a little red LED that just blinked. Someone is watching and listening.
Introduce yourself on video. Consider reliving this fight the next time everything goes well. Think about other people in your life who watch this video and how humiliated you would be. Who would you like to hear least of? Your friends? Your family? Your partner? Your relatives? Your archenemy? Imagine them watching this video right in front of you.
If you do everything right, this thought experiment should be terrifying! Horrible enough that after doing this a few times (oh my god), you associate fighting with this whole vision of the record.
Now, in your vision of “I’m Being Written”, think about talking about things differently. Imagine that you are calming down and listening to what the other person has to say. Imagine that the other person also calms down by responding to your calmness. Imagine the fight turning into a boring and sane discussion. Imagine turning the camera away to find better drama.
Do this so that the next time an argument flares up, you think of the camera on. So that you catch yourself, slow down and speak as if you have an audience. Don’t play with an imaginary camera – any passive-aggressive material will be obvious to anyone watching. Act like it’s your job to make the camera go away by turning off the drama.
This will require you to listen to the other person, think carefully about what they are saying, and calibrate your response. This will take you back from the “I need to win” thinking to the “we need to get along” thinking. Much of the aggravation of combat comes from interpreting each other’s words in the most antagonistic way, so you can become the “hero” of the fight. If you switch to the “get along” mindset, you interpret everything the other person says more generously and fairly. And it makes it less likely that you will say something stupid, wrong, or hurtful. This makes it way more likely that you will go away getting what you wanted.
And be grateful that your fights are not being recorded. As Reddit editor GLITCHEDMATRIX puts it , “I once wrote down an argument and didn’t realize how wrong I was until I watched it.” \