Why I (Am Trying To) Stop Being An Over Explainer

“Context is key” is a response to being misunderstood which transformed into an ethos. It drives the way I communicate because I’m bothered when someone misconstrues my point.

Unfortunately, I consider that need a prominent character defect. An unintended side-effect of this ethos leads to offering explanations in scenarios where silence is preferable.

I value precision and economical communication. Putting things in their appropriate context is how I ensure all the necessary facts are present. Words are absent meaning if there aren’t circumstances to define them.

For example, let’s talk about the act of killing someone. If you plan to kill someone it’s first-degree murder. If your reckless action leads to someone’s death, say, randomly firing a gun into a crowd, it’s second-degree murder. However, driving drunk and killing someone isn’t legally classified as murder. It’s commonly referred to as vehicular homicide/manslaughter. Killing someone who tries to kill you, is generally referred to as self-defense.

(It’s also worth noting these definitions are general…and vary from city, state, region, facts, and whatever else the law deems applicable to those phrases.)

One thing means something in one way but if you change factors it means something else. Add in how easy it is to misinterpret a situation based on a variety of factors like the syntax, diction, and emotional state of the person, reading, and a simple statement is no longer simple. Therein lies my problem.

I’m a lifelong over-explainer. A trait first noticed, annoyingly so, by a college ex-girlfriend. She didn’t understand why I gave people what she referred to as “non-pertinent information.” I argued it made more sense for me to take the time and explain my thought process behind any conclusion to which I arrived. She was unconvinced.

The “need” to be understood isn’t a novel concept. Most people want to be heard even if the masses don’t agree with them. Hell, this simple ideology is the catalyst for my writing career. In my humblest beginnings, I published my thoughts online because I had something to say and I thought I was compelling enough to garner an audience for saying it.

I was blissfully unaware, however, at how many people are willing to argue with someone on the internet. The web is filled with folks begging to poke holes in statements, turning innocuous phrases into full-blown “shouting” matches.

If I can be frank, I’ve enjoyed my fair share of arguments for the sake of arguing. In a “steel sharpens steel the way man sharpens man” sort of manner, I thought of the banter as a test. How effectively can I state my points, provide counterpoints, and “win” a debate by contextualizing my ideas?

The road to Hell was paved with good intentions, so, my (ill-fitting) logic hardly, if ever, worked that way in practice. Social media taught me no person with any real interest in their own sanity would willingly throw themselves into the fires of internet “debates.” Those interactions left me highly irritable on its best days…and downright furious on their worst.

It’s a shame how long it took to learn engaging in this back-and-forth is akin to playing chess with a child who thinks chess is just a really elaborate way of playing checkers. The internet has no rules of engagement, so, there is no winning. It’s just two (or 200) people screaming into the void until another topic comes along so we can all scream into another void.

My penchant for these episodes and seasons of endless debate, combined with what some may consider an extremely stubborn personality, particularly when I know I’m right and the other person is wrong, wasn’t a good mix. At some point, my efforts proved futile and opting out was the smartest decision to make.

And, no. The fact I’m explaining why I’m an over-explainer, while also explaining why I’m trying to rid myself of over-explaining, isn’t lost on me in the slightest. I just wanted to provide background on where I came from and why I made the decision to (try to) stop.

After all, context is key.