What’s the dumbest fight you’ve ever had with a partner?

Was it about who was right about something that ultimately didn’t matter at all?

Now hold that in your head and see how it compares to this:

We broke up over, you guessed it, whether shaved hair grows back thicker or not

So me and the gal I had been dating were hanging out watching a movie when for some reason she started talking about shaved hair growing back thicker.

She claimed both her sister and she had shaved their arms and her sister stopped and grew back coarse, thick hair and that she would never stop shaving lest she suffer her sister’s fate.

I told her science said otherwise but she claimed her personal evidence trumped science.

Personal evidence is also known as anecdotal, and scientifically speaking it’s worthless.

A small sample size, not controlling for variables, and inexact observations makes these bits of data super unreliable and not at all useful for coming to broader conclusions.

This tends to rub us the wrong way, because it feels like we’re being told we can’t trust our own experiences, but what we really have to do is put those experiences in a wider context, and just admit to ourselves that we don’t know everything.

I of course consulted the oracle and asked “does shaving your hair make it grow back thicker or coarser” I moved past the AI response to the first hit, which was by the mayo clinic, which said no.

The AI was based on this by the way.

I showed it to her, she claimed I skipped past things to find a result I found agreeable and proceeded to make her own search.

Her search largely produced the same results but focused on the blunt tip of shaved hair being coarse.

She latched onto this and believed that the entire follicles had been changed.

Ok now we’re really splitting hairs.

I tried to explain that no, like the snippet said, it was the tip but she refused to listen.

She proceeded to argue that she was right and that she would pack her things and leave if I didn’t admit she was right.

I’m stubborn (I know I should have conceded, but I just can’t) so I refused.

She left, we argued over text for like an hour where she just demanded I apologize and admit I was wrong and she would return. I refused.

It escalated to where she threatened to slander me on social channels as well as try to get me 86ed from local watering holes.

Ah yes, the old “change your mind about science or I’ll slander you” gambit.

I don’t think I was wrong, I don’t know how things got escalated to such a point, its insane.

I had intended on posting our text messages but apparently we can’t do that here.

In conclusion:

Science says hair isn’t permanently effected by shaving, after the tip, it’s back to normal.

Am I crazy? Am I a [jerk]?

Good lord. Let’s see what the comments make of this:

This really is a point of contention, huh?

This feels like a pretense.

Dang, weird priorities, girl.

When you’re right, you’re right.

In my opinion, learning how to be wrong – that is, learning how to learn with some humility – is a vitally important life skill.

And “deny reality or I’ll exile you” is some cult leader nonsense.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.