I Still Don't Need to Engage With You
Years ago I wrote that I don’t need to engage with someone who’s not engaged with me. Back then it was about conversations drifting away from me and people announcing truths I didn’t share. I filed it under personal quirks. A recent event suggests it has a trigger I hadn’t named.
Someone asked the group whether anyone had experience with a particular thing. I did, so I said so. When I was pressed for details I came up short, because the experience was real but the specifics had faded, as specifics do. The answer was “Oh, you’d remember.” My experience was set aside, not because anyone doubted it but because I couldn’t recite it on demand.
Nobody asked for a transcript from the people who stayed quiet. I offered something useful and found out the price of admission was perfect recall. Memory doesn’t work that way. The details go first and the fact of having done the thing stays.
So I shut down for the rest of the event, exactly as I would have in 2012. I was still happy to listen and learn. But once you’ve shown me that what I know only counts if I can prove it, I’m not going to keep offering it.
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