Lately, I’m getting sick of people everywhere I go completely misrepresenting almost everything I say (online or in-person, mostly in-person), and I see people doing stuff all the time that has no purpose other than being dishonest. It honestly feels lately like people want to have this chip on their shoulder or they want to feel morally superior. For example, I can just make some friendly comment like, “I really enjoy the color red.” It’ll then proceed into a downward spiral of why I’m against other colors that I’m not against, which somehow goes into politics or worse. Everything innocuous nowadays seems to spiral into the most annoying conversation of strawmen, ad hominems, and non sequitur.
It’s not just with me. I will see people mention the tiniest things and it will spiral into a war against somebody, when nothing even close was intended and we all know what was actually being talked about.
How do you engage with people who want to purposely/incompetently misrepresent everything you say or do? I know the common response is “just don’t engage with those people.” However, lately it feels like everyone to some degree is becoming one of those people. I don’t want to cut myself off from a large group of people. I’d rather learn to actually be able to talk with them. I’d love any advice.