Brotherhood of Men

I just witnessed a hilarious thing which happened to my officemates. These are two 30-something guys who works on the same field and, more importantly, they are brothers. They got into an argument about something which I didn't understand. Well, whatever it was, it was definitely a subject they both understood plenty because they were arguing so heatedly that not one of them was able to finish a single sentence throughout the entire debate because they kept interrupting each other. If there had been other people present, they would have made quite a spectacle.

So anyway, they were engage in this ferocious battle over who was right and as I was sitting there listening to them, I had no idea how they figured that the other was wrong because they weren't even listening to each other. They were literally talking at the same time. They went like this:

Them (at the same time): Listen to me! Blah, blah, blah...(both stops mid-sentence). You are not listening to me!!!

If they weren't so serious I would have died on the floor from laughing so hard. They would go silent for a few moments while devising another way to rebut the other's argument. When one of them uttered a single word, the whole argument started anew but taking up the same line as above. I am pretty sure that it wasn't resolve up to this point but an hour or so after the debate, they got into talking about another subject and they were laughing like they weren't on each other's throats a few seconds ago.

It's a typical male behavior. If it were girls, even after the issue had been resolved, there would follow a cold war that would last for generations. This also got me to thinking about what would happen if my brother and I got into an argument like the one that they just had. The only thing I could think of is it wouldn't be possible because number 1, my brother and I are not in the same field and number 2, if my brother will argue with me, I will employ the technique I have long practiced over my siblings which basically discourages any of them from arguing with me: I'm going to smack him.

There is no room for democracy when you are snipping sibling rivalry at the bud.