I was working late last night at home trying to make some progress on one of my personal software projects when a friend of mine complained about how her boyfriend is never considerate enough to put the toilet seat back down. Then she went on to tell me how she told him to "admit that he was wrong like a real man should". This gave me a bit of a chuckle as I could see where both parties were coming from. Being the third person in the conversation I first calmed her down and told her that I'd give her my take on the whole situation and when I'm done taking my stab on it she could then see if she can see the situation in a different way. The following is the gist of my 2 cents.

My personal experience leads me to believe that most arguments that occur in a relationship stems from two opposing views on the same subject matter due mostly to personal beliefs, habits, etc resulting from different background, experience or ways of analyzing a situation. When an argument breaks out, I believe the first and foremost thing to do is to figure out where and why exactly the two differ. Then they should try to understand each other from each other's shoes. When that task has been completed you can both apologize for what has already happened. Yes, I said both. One for starting the argument, and the other for causing the argument to happen in the first place. However, it is important to reiterate to each other that each other's perspective has been fully understood. When all that has been done correctly and honestly, that argument should never occur again.

There's never a "right" or a "wrong" side to the type of argument we're talking about here. You can look at it from the guy's perspective "He's never had to do this for his entire life, so I understand it's going to take a long time for him to get used to it, if ever. I'll just keep quiet and spend the extra 2 seconds before using the toilet to put the seat down" or from the girl's perspective "It's really a simple gesture of courtesy to somebody who's living with you. It doesn't take a Haravard degree to remember to put the seat down after I'm done. So I'll just spend the extra 2 seconds from now on to put the seat down." When you're in this position the last thing you want to do is tell him that he should "admit that he was wrong like a real man should". Then we're venturing into the paths of never never land where we let emotions take over ourselves and say or do things to each other that may end up hurting deep inside, and you know wounds caused by words are the hardest to heal.

Also, an important side note to this situation is that the tendency for one to try and put a "right" or "wrong" label on everything can potentially be devastating to a relationship. In a relationship I've never seen a situation where it was worth arguing that the other person was "wrong". What should happen instead is provide each other with an insight into why there is a disagreement on the subject matter then allow both mature adults to decide on their own on what to do when the same exact situation arises at another time. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, when two people have different ones, you just have to work with them both. The moment you try to prove the other person is "wrong" that person will only get defensive and when somebody gets on the defensive side they tend not try to listen to your perspective but to only try and find out holes in your argument to try and make a comeback.

After talking to other female buddies, the worst thing that has happened to them with the toilet seat is when it was in the middle of the night and they were half asleep and fell in. o_O They claim that the best way to resolve that situation is to calm down, wipe your ass (but the ass should should still be cold from the water), go back to your man, put your cold ass up against his bare back and make him share the consequence. When he yelps, you can have a good laugh. I think I like that idea. :) That ought to be a much more fun way of resolving the situation. ;)