How to Tell If You Are A Hater

It’s amazing how many haters write in claiming to be former classmates who can’t remember anything specific I did wrong, but are adamant that I deserved to get kicked out of University. Why? Because I was constantly interrupting the professors to make pointless long-winded arguments. And yet when I ask them to describe one specific episode, they bristle with indignation because:

a) there were just so many occasions they all blurred together

b) they can’t remember because they tuned right out as soon as I would start to speak, and

c) it doesn’t matter what I was saying because I clearly just wanted to hear the sound of my own voice.

The last of these three points is a bit peculiar: what if it’s true? What if I was only speaking out because I liked to hear myself talk? First of all, this is a teacher education program, so you’d think that all the people in the course have some desire to be at the front of the room holding forth. To find fault with that is a bit like going to a dance school and complaining that you can’t stand watching another student dance because he “obviously just loves to be prancing about in front of an audience”. Well, DUH…

If I speak out in class, either I’m saying something worthwhile or I’m not. So what difference does it make if I like the sound of my own voice…unless their saying that even if I have something worthwhile to say,  I should “put a sock in it” regardless. Because they don’t want to hear it either way.

And when it comes right down to it, that is their essential position. But even the haters are embarrassed to come out and put it in such crass terms; so they have to justify their hatred by saying that every time I interrupted I was wasting valuable class time with irrelevancies. But here’s the problem…when I ask them for one single example of a time I spoke out improperly, they get all up in a huff and say “how am I supposed to remember what you said? I stopped listening as soon as you opened your mouth”.

As I tried unsuccessfully to explain to Mr. Confused the other day, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say I was talking nonsense, and then say you don’t know what I was saying because you weren’t listening. And you can’t get out of this dilemma by changing the subject and accusing me of loving the sound of my own voice. Because that’s beside the point.

But there’s a deeper reason the haters can’t understand what’s wrong with their position. Yes, they are not very smart, but that’s not the real reason. The real reason is that they are not very honest. They DO remember the things that happened in class, but they don’t want to admit it.

Of course they remember the things that happened! How do you sit for ten weeks in class with a guy who, according to them, is a constant thorn in the professors side, an ongoing disruption to their education…and there aren’t two or three glaring examples that stand out to prove their point? Who are they kidding.

They remember what happened. And the reason they won’t come clean is because they know that the stories reveal more about the jackass behavior of the professors (and sometimes themselves) than anything bad about me.

Oh yeah...and how do you know if you're a hater? If you've ever said (a), (b), or (c) above.