It started off as a normal car ride.
Joel & I were driving to the night class he teaches which is 40 miles away.
I like to accompany him sometimes because it gives us more time together and I enjoy working on reading or writing in the library at the school.
I was getting a little cold, and would turn the air off. But Joel was kind of warm, so he would quickly turn it back on.
So then I had an idea to close my vents and turn the air on full blast.
I said, “There, now you can have all the cold you want!”
(I was joking and expected him to turn it off).
I also picked up my sweater and put it over me, so that the cold would not effect me.
Joel, however, didn’t turn off the air, he wanted to show that he could handle what I dished out.
So he pretends like he is just fine.
And I pretend like I am just fine.
But then Joel starts to get pretty cold, and his cold hand starts to pull at my sweater, saying, “Oh what’s this…” trying to pull it off me so that I will not be able to stand the air either.
He kept trying to get my sweater, and I jokingly accused him of using lowly tactics, and therefore that I was winning.
He said, no I wasn’t winning, that he was winning because he was able to stand it.
And I said he could hardly stand it because he was trying to take my sweater away! We are still both in a joking spirit, but are stubborn at the same time.
So then he starts saying that it is ethical of me to turn it off because I am the one responsible for turning it on HI.
He kept saying this silly argument about how I should feel bad for making my husband cold and that since I was the one who turned it on, then it was my responsibility to turn it off and that it had nothing to do with winning or losing, but that it was my responsibility.
I wasn’t buying it.
I knew if I turned it off, then I would lose, and I knew he was being silly in trying to get himself to win.
And so we drive on jokingly arguing, with me saying how silly his argument is and that I don’t buy it, and with him continuing to try to convince me of my moral duty.
Then once we are finally close to the school, he changes his tune.
He says that he had convinced himself about how it was my moral responsibility, but he now sees that he was full of it, and that he can handle it.
Since the end was in sight, he gained the energy to make it to the end.
He was really cold by then, and I wasn’t doing as bad as him, but my hair was freezing and felt really cold on my head, neck and face.
So he begins to tell me how he will have won soon because he isn’t going to turn it off and that he will have demonstrated to me that he can handle what I gave him.
But I explained to him that with all his trying to pull my sweater and with his trying to convince me that I needed to turn it off, then he was full of it and that I had won because he wasn’t able to handle it well.
He laughingly tried to make the case that he still won, and I laughingly continued to explain why he had lost.
So we finally make it to park, and we turn off the car, without either of us turning the air back to the off position.
We can’t help but to joke about how silly we are being, but we also couldn’t stand the idea of giving up either.
Even though we knew we were being silly, neither of us could totally give it up because we did care about winning!
So we are happy and he goes on to class and I go to the library.
Then after class, we were in a nice conversation about some art that we just looked at (it was displayed at the college) and we get in the car like normal, and he turns on the car, and the air is up on HI. At first, I don’t think about it, since we are in the middle of a conversation, so I reach to turn the air off, but then I glance at Joel’s face and he is sitting there, looking at the air, with this little half smile on his face. It suddenly occurred to me that his smile meant he thought he was going to win!!!! Then our silly game came back to me fast and I jerked my hand away from the air conditioner knob. He laughed at me saying, did you see your face, and how you jerked back. And I laughed at him saying, did you see your face and how you thought you had me! And then we found each other right back where we left off!! Neither of us was going to touch it, and it was cold! So he starts driving, and he says I am being stubborn for not turning it off, and I say how he is just as stubborn as me for not doing it either!! And we are just so ridiculous!! So finally I say, ok how about we both turn it off together. Ok? And he was hesitant, but he said ok, and we turned it off together. Whew! It’s finally over.
It was so remarkable how we both knew how silly it was, but that we still both almost couldn’t stop. I thought it was a pretty funny way of displaying something about us. We are stubborn and equally so which is why we do get into arguments and because we both want to win. Although, we don’t always think it is that we want to win, because when it is about a more serious subject, then we don’t realize how we are convincing ourselves of something just because we want to be right. We know that we are like this with games as well, because when we play mastermind, neither of us want to quit if the other person won. So we will either play game after game, or we will choose a set number of games and play only that amount. But ultimately, we can never really stop, because we both want to beat each other more, so we will play again soon to regain a winning position. It is just so silly. It is something that we can laugh about, and something that we can start to recognize more in our more serious discussions. We have definitely come a long way, and we both don’t argue like we used to. We are better at trying to ally ourselves together by trying to figure out the truth of the matter rather than thinking we already know the truth and trying to convince the other person. But as we discovered, our stubbornness is strong, and will not disappear easily. And in the end, neither of us really win.
