How To Win An Argument

Robert
Treborlang
Australia

How To Win An Argument
What constitutes a successful argument in this society? According to television soap operas and dramas, everyone in Australia is unbelievably outspoken and confronting and permanently engaged in all-out exchanges. When I travel around this country, I often dislocate my vertebrae looking up into trees to see whether there are any confrontation-loving air-clearing people there, because I certainly don't see them down here on the ground. In fact all I ever meet are people who will go a thousand kilometres out of their way to avoid any sort of open confrontation.

But of course, at the same time, people do have arguments and fights which end up won or lost same as everywhere else in the world. The trouble is they don't look anything like the overseas style arguments described by TV writers who copy overseas style exchanges But having a truly successful argument in the Aussie style takes a totally different course, as they are enacted by people whose prime concern is not voicing the real issues that bother them, and who spend much of their energy trying to trick the other person into naming the grievance that rankles them, for whoever speals out first is the one considered to be the loser.

Opening Shots

The thirty-two year old husband begins to hint that he would like to invite three of his mates home for a few drinks. This is not convenient. His thirty year old partner changes the subject quickly and complains about the amount of housework she has to do.

  She brings out the laundry basket, bunging on the exaggerated gestures. Plants it down. Assembles the ironing board noisily in the middle of the loungeroom. In ten minutes or less she has the ironing board all set up and ready to go.

  The air crackles.

  He fidgets, looking at her jerkily from the corner of his eyes, wondering what she's on about. She thumps the ironing board, complains hat no one helps her with the ironing, thumps the iron back and forth.

  He tries to defuse the situation by studying aloud the television program for the evening.

  She gets the first pillow case out contentiously. Puts the iron down, thumps it on the pillow case.

  His arm twitches involuntarily.

  She gets the second pillow case and singes it to demonstrate that her conscience is clear.

  He thumps down the beer on the coffee table to prove that he has no point to admit to.

  She throws a starched shirt on the ironing board and whacks the iron all over it. He is clearly not satisfied with losing control of the situation and slouches aggressively before the TV set.

  She gets a whole bed sheet out, flaps it in the air, folds it a few times with momentous gestures to show she's in the clear.

  His whole body is tensing up as he picks up the beer.
  "What's wrong?"
  "Nothing, nothing."

  She stokes her temper and starts to thump more and more assertively, ironing faster and faster and ironing the same shirt over and over in preparation for an argument.
  "What's the problem? Why are you making so much noise with the ironing?"
  "Well, someone's got to do it."

  She presses the steam button and fires a shot of steam into the living room.

  He looks past her eyes above her left ear.

  She is trying to get him to guess, she is trying to make him acknowledge the problem. He should be able to surmise what it is. If he doesn't know, that only goes to show how dreadful he is.

  She keeps her eyes down.

  He stares at the TV.

  They both make a point of missing each other's gaze.

  A buildup.

  A symphony of tension.

Escalation

She's not going to even think about it. Because if she does state the problem then he'll only make fun of her or deny it. Because if he doesn't know what's upsetting me, then he shouldn't be in the same room with me.

  It's a relationship test.

  He's not sure what the problem is but all the same he doesn't want the hard word put on him to be coerced into talking about it. 'Because if I do,' he thinks, 'she might think I'm admitting something is my fault which it isn't.'

  It's a relationship test.

  Saying what the problem is becomes the failure.

  You failed if you state the problem.

  In Australia stating your gripe is tantamount to giving the other person an atom bomb for they would now have all the ammunition in the world to retaliate by accusing you of making accusations which would give you the right to accuse them of making accusations about them accusing you unfairly.

  She can't say: I don't want your mates drinking here.

  He can't say: I can't bring them here because it's too neat.

  Because once you state what bothers you, sure as daylight, you leave yourself open for criticism, you become the butt of the other person's ridicule.

Crescendo of Resentment

He: (thinks) I know what she is trying to do. What she is trying to do is make me come out with my complaint, she's trying to trick me and make me say something negative that she can then take me to task for.

  She: (thinks) If he believes he can get me to say something so that he can then jump on me ad nauseam for saying it, he's got another thing coming.
  "Stop it!" he calls out.
  "Stop what?" she asks without look at him.
  "Stop ironing!"
  "You just relax!"
  "Sit down!"
  "Watch your TV!"

  She wants him to admit that something is wrong but she doesn't want to state the problem. It would be like admitting early defeat.

  He wants her to acknowledge that she has wronged him but does not indicate in what way. It's up to her to guess.

  It's a test.

  It's a relationship test.

  It hasn't worked, she is now pounding the ironing board with the eloquence of Margaret Thatcher. He is pumping the remote control switching TV channels with the defiance of a Kennedy making his ich bin ein Berliner! speech.

  They both feel they are really expressing themselves now. Expressing their refusal to admit guilt or defeat.

Full Frontal Attack

He flicks the pages of a tabloid newspaper with noisy gusto. Her iron crashes into those buttons on her cotton blouse with passion.

  The flame of her indignation explodes, fuelled by his challenge. She responds to his outburst by narrowing her eyes, compressing her lips, and slowing her ironing almost to a standstill.

  He realises he should hold back his temper but this is not so simple. Finally giving in to the urge of his own fury, he shifts sideways on the armchair and makes a show of snapping the sports pages shut.
  "Quit it!"
  "Quit what?"

  Even though the fight seems to be evenly matched, he doesn't really feel he is winning and this bothers him. I should walk out of the room to make my final point, he thinks. But something keeps him in the room. Perhaps because not everything has been said yet.
  "Stop that!"
  "Stop what?"

  Careful not to be the first one to put a foot wrong, she ignores him warily. I must not leave the room, she thinks, no matter what happens. If I do it'll seem as if I had a point to make, which of course I do, but I want him to be the one to make it.
  "I'll ring up my mates in a minute," he remarks.

  She pretends not to hear.

  He goes to make the call.

Total War

Now that the argument is at fever pitch and rolling almost out of control, fainthearted Europeans might tend to give up, wave the white flag and with a guilty look launch into what really bothers them.

  But the tough Aussies keep going.

  While he is on the phone, she starts pushing furniture around, rearranging the decor. Unable to talk on the phone any further, he remembers to check something in the car.

  The minute he's out of the place, she goes through his wardrobe. Rearranges where everything has to go to teach him a lesson. The moment he's outside, he decides to go for an aimless drive to make her admit that she's in the wrong.

  She goes to her wardrobe and throws out everything that fits her at the moment because she's going on a diet from that day and is going to get herself smaller clothes.

  He calls in at the local TAB to put a hundred bucks on a hundred to one shot because he has decided to turn over a new leaf and is going to have one more flutter before giving it all away.

  He comes home expecting dinner.

  She's got piles of clothes all over the place.

  It's obvious she can't stop now.

  He knows a trap when he sees one and does not ask for food. Walks in, ups the TV set and tears open the bag of chips he brought home with him.

  She comes out furiously with brush and dustpan. Crawls around the floor, picking up the crumbs he's making.

  He feels she might be winning so he starts furiously switching channels and settles on a program neither of them like.

  Worried that he might be getting the better of her, she goes and de-moulds the bathroom for an hour or so.

  To make a point of how unlikely he is to admit to anything, he goes to bed and turns on a talk-back radio station really loudly but still leaves on the TV set in the loungeroom after turning that up too.

  She turns the TV off.

  He walks in, turns it back on, goes to bed.

  She switches it off.

  The argument is now electric.

Victory

After fifteen minutes or so he gets up, comes back into the loungeroom and throws himself into the armchair like someone who's made up his mind to watch television till two am.

  She decides she has to finish the washing and emphasises her point by putting in an extra large load of washing and packing up the drier at the same time.

  It's eleven pm and the house is full of noise.

  You can tell an Australian argument is reaching its climax when all the white goods in the house are being used.

  The house blacks out.

  Overload.

  Darkness.

  Silence.

  They both go to sleep happy in the satisfying knowledge that it was a highly successful argument since neither party has been made to take the bait and state their gripe.

  In fact they have both dutifully obeyed the four main points of the Marquess of Queensland Rules of Aussie Arguments by being mindful of the following:

1. Not facing each other with their gripes.

The gripe she hasn't voiced is that she can't stand his toadying attitude towards his three mates. Not only are they still friends with his first wife, but she just knows that they gossip about her behind her back. His unspoken gripe is that she ignores his mates whom he's known since high school. At the same time she expects him to fawn on her family whenever they visit even though they always disparage him for not making enough money.

2. Not hitting out with the real issues.

She doesn't want to mention that she hates him spending money trying to impress his mates. He doesn't want to mention that she always tries to act like a lady to show up his friends.

3. Not permitting the main problem to be discussed.

He hasn't taken her out for over six months. She never wants sex when he does.

4. Not voicing what really bothers them.

He is always too tired to help around the house. She keeps the house so antiseptically clean that he's afraid to fart.

Copyright © 1991-2002 - Robert Treborlang

Robert
Treborlang
Australia

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