When people think they've got a hot one on the line

Once again my blog post - which appears to be turning into a monthly-at-best phenomenon - was motivated by grande blogger extraordinaire Urspo (2nd time in a row - What's in the water out where he lives?)  See his post of today for background, then chomp right into the substance of this post.  Or, if not inclined to read his post, for some wildly inscrutable reason, you can still just waltz right in.  I hope everyone can identify with being in one of the below-described roles.  I can recall being all of them (some far more than others, and on a constant basis.  I'm trying to say I'm rarely wrong - and I'm never arrogant about it or anything.  Nor prone to hyperbole, or self-aggrandizing, or... Okay, enough introduction.)  Curtains....

See - people can tell when you're doing this (the stuff in the second paragraph under the photo. [of Urspo's post])  At least I can, a lot of the time, and I have to play games back and forth with the opponent, answering to their, "Oh, why would you think I'm being anything other than straightforward - can you prove it?" and it's a miserable experience.

Do we all do some of that (the misery-making hidden-agenda thinly-veiled confirmation-of-suspicions questioning session?)  I guess so.  I'm one of those people who has a tough time going through life when I realize what people are doing and they think for all the world that there's no way I could know that. Most of the time there's no apology or sign of any contrition at all at the end, on the part of the would-be-Sherlock-Holmes (when they're the one who tried to bust me on something but were all wrong from the half-witted start) or the would-be-Bonnie-or-Clyde (who left neon-fingerpainting-footprints all over and thought I wouldn't see them.)

This isn't me, but I'm pretty sure it's what I look like when I have to sit through one of these sessions.

Sorry - I shouldn't have dumped my issue on your nice blog post.  I'm going to turn it around and say that I can identify with you, as well.  Let me tell you, there have been a few times (it doesn't happen often) when I misread, or get the wrong info, or may just jump to an ill-formed conclusion and make a complete monkey's ass out of myself. (as David described. [in the comments section of Urspo's post])  Here's what I normally do: When in your position as described [in Urspo's post], I just go ahead and pounce and risk being an ass, but I try to keep it non-judgmental and sterile/factual until the person doing the mindf*ckery on me (because the vast majority of the time that's what's really going on) is completely convicted and sentenced.  Then I tell them what I really think if they don't have the integrity to admit to what they've done (which 99/100 they don't.)

What I look like on the rare occasion I wind up being on the misled/mistaken end (wrong, in other words) of a fact-finding session.

What I look like most of the time when it ends up just as I thought - that the person pulling a fast one was up to no good and furthermore, won't even admit to it when totally busted. (This is how I live my life too much of the time.)