How To Have A Really Good Argument

When I was young, my parents used to argue… a lot. They got really good at it, because they put so much time and effort into practising. Screaming, shouting and hurling painful insults at each other was the order of the day. The more cutting the insult, the more points they scored off each other as their mutual self-esteem gradually wore lower and lower while they verbally pummelled each other into the ground.

Winning the argument was more important than anything else. They had the ability to drag a single argument out for days, weeks, months… even years! It was like being on the sidelines of one of those long and boring tennis matches that just goes on and on and on long past your bedtime, swinging from advantage server to advantage receiver depending on who had just fired the most powerful volley at their opponent. They may have started out at love all but gradually wore each other down bit by bit until they were too exhausted to play on and the match eventually got halted mid-play to be continued the next day.

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