Well, I haven't posted in a while
 

I have a really bad temper. Like, really bad. I get very angry over things, sometimes for an extended period of time.

People that know me pretty decently--not really my best friends, but my friends' friends--have begun to use this against me. Any argument that's taken place in my home lately has been a race to set off my temper. Essentially, the agenda in any given disagreement is to make me angry enough to yell, then smile all smug-and-calm-like with arms crossed, throwing confident glances at everyone else around the room.

This strategy has been used to put down maybe three different arguments in four days now, with different people. I nearly got baited into it a fourth time today. They'll say or do something (often to me personally), I'll disagree with it, they'll claim something along the lines of "Well you just X" or "But you always Y," and from there proceed to use every conceivable debating fallacy they can possibly get their hands on to avoid actually dealing with, what usually sounds to me as, a perfectly valid point. They then just stall with really obnoxious non-arguments until I'm visibly angry, then act like it's a total victory on their part.

Again, it nearly happened a fourth time. They tried to do this. They tried to lure me into this.

Give me advice or discuss or whatever, I guess. I just really sorta wanted to get it off my chest. I've essentially given up my rights to claiming victimization among my social group, seeing as I'm a loud angry asshole all the time. It's not a massive, life threatening issue or anything, I'm just kind of tired of it and felt like explaining it to someone.

That's all. Sorry to waste your time if I did so.

It sounds like they may be helping you actually combat this if you finally went 'ARRRGGGGggghhhh-h-hey... hey. Oh. You guys.'

Albeit, they may be doing so in a totally douchey way. I know that when someone consistently confronts me with my issues in a sincere, concerned manner, I feel better equiped to improve myself.

I am pretty much the same way. Although, the last time someone set me off, I went off on them so hard they hadn't tried it again. You won't like me when I'm angry. I use dumbfuck a lot. Basically, find a way to direct your rage. And use dumbfuck, it just makes you happy. Allows you to calm down.

I'd say that when you get to the point where you're gonna blow up, just leave. Go for a walk or something until you cool down. Maybe it'll feel like you're loosing the argument, but over time you'll build up your tolerance and you won't give your friends the satisfaction of loosing your cool.

Do you get a huge joy out of "winning" an argument? Because there's really no point, except for some sort of useless sense of ego. I believe arguments to be rather futile in this vein. Discussions, on the other hand, can be fun, informative, and rewarding. If you go into conversations with the mindset of "discussion" rather than "argument", you may find the lack of desire to "win" an argument, but rather trade viewpoints, maybe analyze why you have different viewpoints, lend creedence to why one could be false or why the other could be false, smile, shake hands, and go your separate ways.

Versus an argument, where two people (usually friends or family) get angry and heated over something usually inane and stupid, lose all sense of logic and refuse to be "wrong", even if their point no longer makes sense. Both sides will want to "win" really badly, and it usually escalates into anger. And even if one side "wins", it's not a "win" per se, because chances are, you still haven't really convinced the other side of your point.

I guess the trick is to really never argue something as "right" and "wrong", even if that's how you perceive it. There's no point. Discuss, even debate someone all you want, but unless you are both calm and collected, no one's going to be willing to change their viewpoint.

I'm not saying it's impossible to change someone's viewpoint, but the minute you look at something as "win or lose", you're kind of automatically considering yourself correct, which you may not be.

Just my two cents :)

I think you need to learn to calmly, measuredly, with completely even temperament and tone, call people douchebag idiots.

Just be like "Look it's nothing personal, I'm not mad at you or anything, it's just that you are an idiot. Just an incredibly stupid person, with a defective brain that makes you think stupid, stupid things."

And then calmly, rationally, with reserved and careful comport, punch them real hard in the nuts.

I would just tell them their is no point in debating this because it'll just end up into a yelling match and its not like either of our viewpoints would change and then ignore it. Or you could just ignore them whenever they try goad you into getting into it.

OH you know what's great is like when they start on this trying to make you mad thing what you do is, start telling them to calm down. Like as soon as they start up the stupid fallacy train you just go like "look there's no need to get excited, just settle down and be rational." Do it right and they will totally lose their shit.

I've seen people do that to others, it is absolutely hilarious. The person being told to calm down end up going ballistic. Genius Fifth, pure Genius!

I learned this cause this one douchebag boss of mine did this all the time, like he's the tweakiest asshole you'll ever meet so he'll roll up into your cubicle and start spazzing the fuck out at me and then you start getting jumpy cause of him getting all jumpy at you and then he'll bust out "look just calm down" and just, ARRRRRGH. So I was like "fuck this" and when he'd get all spazzy at me right away I'd jump right to telling him to settle down and he just did not know WHAT to do and now I don't get that shit from him anymore.