I allowed myself to get into a really silly argument
this morning, one which I think did both parties a lot of damage and made us
both look like complete pricks. It was our old friend “God vs Science” again. A
middle-aged gentleman named Christian (rather aptly) set things off and I,
naturally, was on the side of the scientists and tried to engage him in a
reasoned debate. Well – I say that in retrospect, the truth is probably that I
rolled my eyes and huffed and tutted and started trying to put him in his
place. Either way, we don’t need to go into details. Basically he was sitting
near me in the canteen and went on about childbirth being a gift from the
Almighty, and without pausing for breath I waded in and started throwing
evolution and chemistry at him, and then got a bit irked when he didn’t react
positively! We both dragged up tired old arguments, we both ignored what the
other person was saying, and in the end Kathleen from the kitchen came out and
made us move to opposite ends of the table. Talk about being treated like
children, but then, I guess that’s how we were acting.
I do feel bad about it. I’m not sure if it’s remorse
for the fact that I acted like a twat in front of colleagues, or guilt because I
disturbed some people’s lunch breaks, or simply hurt pride because I didn’t win
by convincing him to change his mind, but it’s left a very bad taste in my
mouth, that even a Bounty ice-cream couldn’t disperse.
It would be nice to say ‘Sod it – I’ll never see him
again so don’t worry about it” but unfortunately he’s a representative for a
company that provides cleaning products to the supermarket, so it’s almost a
given that we’ll run into each other soon.
I hate to go all hippy on you, but arguments are
such a waste of energy, man. I may try and do the right thing and find his
details so I can send an apologetic e-mail or something. No point leaving it
hanging over us.
RC 27-6-19
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