#ty again Aud for looking over the argument for me and assuring me that I wasn't going crazy I was being strawmanned

[mercurialmalcontent]

I keep thinking about a nasty argument I had a few days ago with a friend (or 'friend' at this point) where they got really upset at me for a conversation about alt text I reblogged and then made my own posts about on Bluesky. The conversation made me feel like I was having a stroke, and it took me a few days to process exactly why--

Nothing I said seemed to matter, nothing I explained seemed to matter, it was all met with "No it isn't difficult to add ever" or "yes it is ableist not to add alt text, no matter your circumstances" with no unpacking, no explaining their position (and many of their responses were just "No it isn't" or "Oh, but it is"). They approached me with an attitude of "You're wrong and have to agree with me" and dug in their heels about it, with some manipulative "I don't know if we can be friends if you hold this position [that's a distortion of what you actually said]" statements in there for flavor.

How do you have any sort of conversation with someone who comes in assuming the worst of you and whose arguments are largely "Nuh-UH"??

Well, you don't, really. Eventually after a few rounds of going around in increasingly stupid circles with me not being able to keep up to their five or more messages to my every one and having longer and longer stretches of silence because I was kind of freaked out they calmed down enough, I guess, to read some of what I was actually writing and figure out that I didn't post those things into the void to Attack Them Personally*. (That the void suddenly paid a bit of attention to my posts was surprise.) It's like it didn't occur to them I was seeing alt text discourse from anyone other than them until that point. SUDDENLY, they were all "well maybe we can agree to disagree :)" and sweetness and light.

Seriously???

The rest of the conversation was light and surface level and if we have any conversations in the future, that's how it's going to stay. This was already a sometimes friend, but now they're an at-arm's-length friend now that I know they employ Twitter asshole argument tactics even against ostensible friends.

* (I find their posts about alt text have become increasingly scolding and condescending, but they're far from those of the most obnoxious people on Bsky, who I've seen say shit like anyone who doesn't use alt text always should be driven off the site. Only one kind of accessibility is important!!)