What to do about a friend that constantly challenges your opinion on things?

[Yopaz]

My thought too. I can't tell if he just picked an example where his friend is justified in what he's doing or if he really is in the right when he challenges what people say.

It's difficult to say, as these things are. OP could be biased, or missing information. And the quote is out of context. I'd take him at his word, it's pretty tame, even if it is marginally sexist out of context.

As if anyone would care: as a demonstration, let me find some of the worst things I've written in Facebook chat today:

Spoiler: Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and spoiler that

"I can oft be found gobbling penises"

"I think I'm all done with my fella."

"In case you can't see, that woman's breasts have extended to her elbows."

"We made it to the top of the food chain. This is the prize: doing whatever the fuck we want with our genitals."

"Dear special someone, Quit wanking everywhere"

Sure, but why not provide the context? Why not give a different example. If Hitler had written a forum post about how he had a vision to make life better, to make humanity move forward and to promote scientific breakthroughs, but some Europeans and Americans decided to be assholes and interfere with him we would be reacting the same way we are here. Context is everything and if something sounds bad taken out of context why not provide the context to make it sound good? Why not pick something that sounds good taken out of context? He said something sexist, his friend pointed out that it was sexist. Without any context his friend is annoying, but not in the wrong.

Your examples are things you have chosen because they sound bad out of context and we do have these discussions. Last Friday me and a group of people discussed murder and someone decided to come over while this one girl talked about how much she wanted to bash in someone's head with a shovel some times because she was judging people without any context of who they truly are.

Now this is actually what we're doing here, we get one side of the story, it's being told by someone who is obviously annoyed at his friend (obvious bias right there) and we are not getting any context. Based on those 3 things I would say that we aren't in a place to judge if his friend is an ass or not.

Now please apologize that little side route about my Friday.

 

[wickedmonkey]

Him: "You're mentally lazy!"

You: "Yeah. And?"

Shut him down whenever he starts doing this by not giving a fuck and he might just get the message.

 

[sc1arr1]

I have a friend thats SORT of like this. But instead of challenging my opinion, he's almost always negative about something myself and my other friends like. We love comic books? He says its impossible for them to tell a good story. I love JRPGs, he says they're trash. It took an hour long video of Adam Sessler talking about the last of us for him to like it. He freaking laughed at a certain emotional part in the very beginning. (kept it vague because spoilers.)

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

To me it feels like every time he does this he's attacking me personally and I've told him this but he has said it's my "victim complex" talking. He's called me mentally lazy for not examining the core of my ideals and morals with a fine tooth comb and magnifying glass every time I say something(my words, not his).

Have better opinions then. If you can't defend what you believe then why do you believe it?

That goes both ways though. Take your example: he called you sexist for saying "Women are a gift from God." Instead of feeling insulted just ask what his reasoning is. As long as it stays civil you'll both be better for it (and maybe one of you will learn something).

 

[barbzilla]

I have a buddy in an online chat that we've been apart of for around 3 years now. It's a fairly diverse group with a fair number of people and we shoot the shit, talk about stuff and share what we like with each other. Recently however, he has taken it upon himself to constantly challenge every view and opinion on any subject that comes up that I present to the group.

He says he does it because he feels that challenging your own opinions constantly is good for you but that this point I just snapped at him and called him out for attacking me personally. As an example, I said the phrase "Women are a gift from God." and he called me out for being sexist about it.

To me it feels like every time he does this he's attacking me personally and I've told him this but he has said it's my "victim complex" talking. He's called me mentally lazy for not examining the core of my ideals and morals with a fine tooth comb and magnifying glass every time I say something(my words, not his).

The main point is that he says it's his right to challenge my opinions on stuff, no matter what they are and I want to hear some outside views on the subject. The rest of the group runs the hell away whenever we get stuck in these tirades and don't take anyone's side on the matter. One more thing to note would be that there is about a 10 year age difference between us, he grew up in Canada and I the United States. Don't know if that matters much, but I thought I'd add it in.

It really depends on how he is about it. If he is just genuinely challenging your opinions, good on him and you should try to argue your view points. If he is actually being confrontational and dickish about it, then dump his ass as a friend. He isn't entirely wrong in his assertion that challenging opinions helps you to grow as a person, it will challenge you to further understand your own thoughts on things (and could manage to change your own mind on things).

 

[Random Argument Man]

Repeating the saying: It's good to challenge stuff, but he's being a prick about it.

It's possible he's trying to make you angry on purpose. If so, just tell him you don't care what he thinks. Mostly, try to actually dismiss his ranting. Or you could just respond by saying "What are your thoughts on the matter?" before saying yours. If he sounds like he has the same opinion as you, you can turn it against him later. In other words, you're beating him at his own game.

Cutting contact also works. He'll either get that the way he's acting makes you angry or he'll ask you about it. When the latter happens, just be straight honest with him. Make it short and direct. And then, don't give him time to reply. If he's your friend, he should be able to get that he ticked you off too much. If he's a prick, he'll just continue doing what he does until he hits a bigger wall in his life.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

well it actually is good for you to have you opinions challenged. it helps you develop them further. Having random statements challenged, however, is not. It's what people who think they are smarter than they actually are do to feel superior. I would know, I used to be like that. Turns out it's annoying as shit.

Tell him that he needs to draw a line between challenging your opinions and being an annoying twat about every little inconsequential thing you say. Let him engage you in a discussion on the topic. If he truly loves challenging conversations and exchange of opinions, the two of you can talk it through and come to an understanding, as long as you manage to stay calm and convincing. If he gets annoyed and gets all defensive and confrontational, he's being a hypocrite. Turn his argument on him. After all, you're just challenging his opinion. It's good for him.

 

[Caiphus]

Sure, but why not provide the context? Why not give a different example. If Hitler had written a forum post about how he had a vision to make life better, to make humanity move forward and to promote scientific breakthroughs, but some Europeans and Americans decided to be assholes and interfere with him we would be reacting the same way we are here. Context is everything and if something sounds bad taken out of context why not provide the context to make it sound good? Why not pick something that sounds good taken out of context? He said something sexist, his friend pointed out that it was sexist. Without any context his friend is annoying, but not in the wrong.

Your examples are things you have chosen because they sound bad out of context and we do have these discussions. Last Friday me and a group of people discussed murder and someone decided to come over while this one girl talked about how much she wanted to bash in someone's head with a shovel some times because she was judging people without any context of who they truly are.

Now this is actually what we're doing here, we get one side of the story, it's being told by someone who is obviously annoyed at his friend (obvious bias right there) and we are not getting any context. Based on those 3 things I would say that we aren't in a place to judge if his friend is an ass or not.

Now please apologize that little side route about my Friday.

Ah, Godwin, good to see you. I wasn't expecting you so soon.

He should probably have provided context. Indeed, these stories usually have an element of bias, either overt or through omission. And one needs to be suspicious. Any omission was likely done so to make the OP look better, not worse. But yeah, I guess you're right. The friend was right, but his reaction was both socially awkward and annoying.

I think we can still make an educated guess. We can say "IF your friend is as you describe him, then yeah, he's an ass." But it doesn't matter. Honestly, whether OP is just sneakily looking for an echo chamber, or telling a perfectly objective series of events... It's 3am and I'm deeply analysing the Internet relationships of a man I'll never meet. Bwarg

 

[Shymer]

You might find the following YouTube videos of interest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnMmO2PdKZY&list=PL7B44BA0DCC742F63

They discuss Transactional Analysis, which is a way of understanding why a particular interaction or set of interactions with someone is not working for you - or keeps going in the same way.

When someone criticises something you say it is often perceived as coming from a "critical parent" ego state. That can push you into a child-like ego state to create a stable complementary transaction.

If you go with it, you may repeat the same transaction over and over with this person. They may be feeding off this transactional response - it might be satisfying something inside them - perhaps attention or a feeling of superiority. However I won't discount the possibility that it is coming from a place of wanting to educate.

As you cannot be responsible for why he is doing what he is doing, you can at least understand your natural reaction to criticism and, perhaps, seek to change it by choosing to react differently.

If you are presenting on a topic - you might have set yourself up as an authority figure. That invites people to behave either like good children (listening and appreciating your wisdom) or to rebel. Perhaps your presentation style might need to invite more input from the audience - acknowledge your lack of expertise - or otherwise come from a more adult, and less parental/authority, perspective?

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Having your opinions challenged is good. Generally people do this without being assholes. Challenging everything someone says can venture into the realm of being an asshole, and a self-important one at that. If they don't do this to other people it could be because of familiarity with you, and allowing it to happen all the time is not helping that. I think you need to tell them that they're bordering on being a prick and suggest they tone it down. If their response is to accuse you of not taking criticism well, I don't know. I wouldn't be interacting with them.

Naturally I don't have all the information here though.

 

[OneCatch]

snip

Discussing things and challenging beliefs is all well and good. Being an arrogant ass is not. It's perfectly possible to discuss things with civility and without calling people 'mentally lazy' and having a 'victim complex' (both of which are examples of personal attacks, and so a bit of a crap rebuttal to the charge of him making personal attacks!).
It also sounds like this situation isn't very nice for the rest of your friends.

That said, saying stuff like 'women are a gift from god' is a little crass - I'd probably call out my own friends on that (actually I'd probably just take the piss out of them). And yeah, if you can't defend a position perhaps re-evaluate it.
But it does sound like he's doing it out of some pretentious ego-hit rather than out of genuine interest in the issue of the day.

Tell him you're perfectly happy to discuss stuff, but not if he's going to be so adversarial, and not every minute of the day.
If that doesn't work, I essentially agree with the others here - ignore it/him, refuse to get drawn in, tell him he's being tiresome, yawn loudly whenever he goes off on one, etc.

 

[otakon17]

Well... it's his right, sure, but he's still being a colossal tool. Anyone who would call me "mentally lazy" or claims that I have a victim complex isn't going to be a friend for very long, that's all I'll say about that. Actual advice: Tell him in no uncertain terms that you're sick of his shit and that you'll be ignoring him. Proceed to ignore him. If he doesn't like it, that's his damn problem.
Out of curiosity, I took a look at your profile, which suggests that you're 29, meaning your friend would be 39 or so. I'm pretty sure age is a factor here, though I'm not sure why. Maybe his age is creeping up on him and he's lashing out at people significantly than him - say, 10 years or so? - to make himself feel better. That's just a wild guess, though.

Funny you should say that. No, I'm the senior in this case.

 

[breadsammich]

I pull that crap on my roommate all the time. The thing is, the reason I do it is because he is just SO opinionated and a lot of times flat out refuses to think about other possibilities than what he believes. A lot of times I argue AGAINST what I actually believe personally just to see if he'll consider a different viewpoint.

That and we both like arguing so much that we have fun just arguing for so long that we forget what we're arguing about.

 

[Yopaz]

Sure, but why not provide the context? Why not give a different example. If Hitler had written a forum post about how he had a vision to make life better, to make humanity move forward and to promote scientific breakthroughs, but some Europeans and Americans decided to be assholes and interfere with him we would be reacting the same way we are here. Context is everything and if something sounds bad taken out of context why not provide the context to make it sound good? Why not pick something that sounds good taken out of context? He said something sexist, his friend pointed out that it was sexist. Without any context his friend is annoying, but not in the wrong.

Your examples are things you have chosen because they sound bad out of context and we do have these discussions. Last Friday me and a group of people discussed murder and someone decided to come over while this one girl talked about how much she wanted to bash in someone's head with a shovel some times because she was judging people without any context of who they truly are.

Now this is actually what we're doing here, we get one side of the story, it's being told by someone who is obviously annoyed at his friend (obvious bias right there) and we are not getting any context. Based on those 3 things I would say that we aren't in a place to judge if his friend is an ass or not.

Now please apologize that little side route about my Friday.

Ah, Godwin, good to see you. I wasn't expecting you so soon.

He should probably have provided context. Indeed, these stories usually have an element of bias, either overt or through omission. And one needs to be suspicious. Any omission was likely done so to make the OP look better, not worse. But yeah, I guess you're right. The friend was right, but his reaction was both socially awkward and annoying.

I think we can still make an educated guess. We can say "IF your friend is as you describe him, then yeah, he's an ass." But it doesn't matter. Honestly, whether OP is just sneakily looking for an echo chamber, or telling a perfectly objective series of events... It's 3am and I'm deeply analysing the Internet relationships of a man I'll never meet. Bwarg

Not really Godwin's law, but rather a ridiculous extreme. The OP doesn't give a context, the question is why. Why provide an example where the friend he's getting annoyed over is in the right and not provide the context it was said in if that made it better? If the OP doesn't want to give the context then either he knows he's wrong and don't want this to be a fair discussion (let's face it, when we complain about friends on the internet we really just want to vent and get support rather than being told we're wrong) or he doesn't care about the context in which case we shouldn't either. We should judge him out of context because he doesn't care enough about the context himself.

Of course the option is to say we can't really judge anything from what he's telling us. His friend might be an ass, he might be right, he might be both. My advice form the first post is rock solid regardless. Don't chat with people if they're simply going to annoy you.

 

[JonnyHG]

It's sexist in such a minor way that only a real ass would seriously call out his friend for it.

That's really one of the MOST sexist things he could say.

 

[JagermanXcell]

I've got one of these friends too just not as bad. His views at times can get a little "I'M RIGHT YOUR WRONG".

Usually the best course of action is to kill him hear him out in a sophisticated manner just as long as you both can reach an agreement with each other's opinion. Getting different sides of spectrums can sometimes be fun/a great learning experience.

If that doesn't work, then kill him.

 

[GonzoGamer]

To me it feels like every time he does this he's attacking me personally and I've told him this but he has said it's my "victim complex" talking. He's called me mentally lazy for not examining the core of my ideals and morals with a fine tooth comb and magnifying glass every time I say something(my words, not his).

That's pretty ironic. You can just as well call him socially lazy for not examining his social interactions with a fine tooth comb.
I've known people like that. Ask him to identify the "complex" that required him to contradict everything anyone says. I've often found that people who claim to know everything are protecting the fact that they really know nothing. They seem desperate to show off to everyone how smart they are.

I've also found that chronic contradictors have become more tolerable with the advent of smart phones because now we can check to see if they're full of shit at any time.

 

[dyre]

It's sexist in such a minor way that only a real ass would seriously call out his friend for it.

That's really one of the MOST sexist things he could say.

Nope, it just has sexist implications that the person saying it doesn't actually mean 99% of the time. I can think of 100 more sexist things a person could say.

In any case, no one likes dealing with the PC Police all the time.