LEVEL 5 / Expert · Communication
Disagree Without a Courtroom
An argument about the thermostat that stays, from start to finish, about the thermostat.
Case file
The argument began at 7:02 on a Wednesday evening, when Beth turned the thermostat up two degrees and Luis, passing, turned it back down.
By 7:05 they had covered the heating bill. By 7:07 they had covered Luis’s cardigans, of which there are six, and Beth’s habit of opening windows in January “like a ship’s officer.” At 7:09 somebody said “this is so typical.”
At 7:11 they reached the speech Luis gave at their wedding in 2014, in which he thanked the caterer, the band and his college roommate, in that order, before Beth.
Both made strong points about the speech. Nobody had touched the thermostat since 7:02.
LESSON 1 · FREE PREVIEW
Two prizes, pick one
Every argument offers two prizes, and you may collect only one. The first is winning: your partner concedes that you were right about the heating, the bill and 2014. The second is fixing: the house ends up at a temperature you can both live in.
Winning feels better for about an hour. Then you notice that you live with the person you defeated, that they are loading the dishwasher with unusual force, and that the house is still cold. A victory over your partner is a victory over half of your own household.
The courtroom habits are easy to spot once you look for them. You gather evidence. You cross-examine (“So you’re saying you never touch it?”). You object to wording. You hold your best point back for the end. All of this is fine preparation for a trial and no use for a thermostat. There is no judge. The jury is one person, who is also the defendant, and you were hoping to have dinner with them.
Fixing is duller and it works. It asks a different question: what would we both accept. Beth and Luis could have reached “one degree up, a cardigan for whoever is cold, and we look again on Sunday” in under four minutes. They would have been comfortable by 7:06.
LESSON 2 · FREE PREVIEW
No back catalog
The Registrar rulesOne argument, one subject. Everything else can wait in the hall with its coat on.
LESSON 3 · FREE PREVIEW
The twenty-minute recess
LESSON 4 · FREE PREVIEW
Fetch the cardigan
LESSON 5 · FREE PREVIEW
The argument you keep having
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