Head Over Flats - Phil

I fell in love with Phil quite gradually, so it was difficult to pinpoint the moment when affection transitioned to love. Funnily enough, I think the Head Over Flats moment for me happened during an argument.

Phil is one of the few people in my life who I fight with, and (of equal, if not greater importance) who is willing to fight with me. I’m not particularly combative, I prefer to reason or compromise; but when I take a stand and decide which hill I’d prefer to die upon, I will put up one hell of a fight.

That particular argument took place on a Monday afternoon. It was a statutory holiday and we were both wretchedly hungover. Phil was regaling me with stories of his work friends and all of the wonderful jokes they share. His boss, by virtue of being one of the few decent people with a sense of humour to ever have been given a managerial position, tended to simply roll along with their jokes and buy the drinks on Fridays. Jealous though this made me (I was working under a micromanaging nightmare in an office where laughter was as foreign as the foul-smelling food spattered inside the microwave), I smiled and nodded along with the story. That is, until Phil told me about one very off-colour joke he’d told that had gotten his female co-worker “all upset”.

He told me the joke. I laughed and immediately felt awful for having laughed.

“Yeah, that’s not cool.” I told him.

“You laughed.” He pointed out, and seemed to believe that justified everything.

“So what did your boss do?”

“He told me I was a jackass and made me apologize to Shannon.”

“Rightly so.”

“What?!” His slightly playful tone led me to believe that we weren’t actually treading on emotional ground. I took a long metaphorical look around, and decided this would be a lovely hill to die on.

He sputtered, “You’re siding with The Man on this?”

“Actually, I’m siding with the woman.” I replied.

“But it’s funny.”

“So is bad porn, that doesn’t mean that it’s ok to foist it on the office.” The reduction to absurdity argument was a natural transition for me.

“So I can’t tell jokes now?” His tone could have withered new grapes on the vine into raisins.

“Not offensive ones.”

“I don’t think it was offensive.”

I told him simply but firmly, “It is.”

“But you laughed.” He countered.

“Yes. I’m part of the problem.” I admitted.

“No! You’re a reasonable human being who doesn’t take everything personally.” I tried not to smile at the inherent compliment, knowing that it would undermine the point at hand. Not sure if I succeeded.

“But your subordinate Shannon did, and that’s what matters.”

He scoffed, “And her opinion matters more than mine because she’s a woman?”

“Yes.”

“That’s sexist.”

I could feel myself winding up. We both could.

The tirade that followed was less dramatic than most of my feminist rants, but not bad. “When your boss is a woman and you are in an office surrounded by women and throughout your life The Matriarchy has told you that you are worth less than women and then when you are made uncomfortable by a joke that your female colleague tells that implies that you’re worthless, then your opinion about that joke will be the one that matters.”

“And now you’re all upset!” Ah yes, he played the “getting emotional” card that devalues my opinions because emotions falsely imply weakness.

New tactic: I pulled on my most reasonable sounding lecture voice and upped my vocabulary. “I am engaging in the dialectic. Forgive me if my argument style is impassioned, that doesn’t make my points any less valid.”

“It doesn’t make them any more valid either.” Touché. Tangential, but a good counter-point.

“The fact that they’re self-evident and reasonable helps.”

“And now you’re an authority on what's reasonable?” He was better at this than he thought. Too bad he didn’t have the high ground, or I would have been in trouble.

“Attacking my ability to defeat your argument through semantics does not trump the fact that you’ve based your opinions on a logical fallacy.”

“Speaking of phallus, I heard the best joke on Friday-”

“Not cool!”

“You’re just saying that because you’re hungry.”

I decided the topic change meant that I had won. But I wanted to make sure.

“And I’m right.” I declared.

He shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right, but regardless we’re going for Vietnamese.”

I love you.

“I’ll get my coat.”

 

It is sometimes essential for a husband and wife to quarrel-they get to know each other better. (Goethe)