Keep your head down...

I often find myself in situations where there's an issue between two or more people that I know well that causes a huge conflict. It starts with a casual discussion between two people about the issue. There's usually a mis-understanding between them. Party A feels one way and wants party B to feel the same and admit that Party A is Right. Party B has a lot of stubborn pride too and won't concede. There's usually about ten to twenty minutes of cyclical conversation before both parties get frustrated with eachother, turn up the volume (verbally) and lose the niceties of the previous portion of the conversation. This continues until either someone gets fed up and ends the conversation or a third party is dragged in in-order to define a variable that neither of them can. This variable is usually used to get a final ruling in the conversation which now has "argument" stamped on it in huge red letters. The next conversation can go many ways depending on the situation. I'm just going to name a few. 1. The third party provides a basic explanation and the judgement is made, for either side (it really doesn't matter). 2. The third party kicks it over to a fourth party that isn't there currently (which is putting a band-aid on the problem and just making the whole ordeal a lot longer and drawn out, really.) 3. The third party has just as much stubborn pride as the other two and argues his or her point (which creates an alegence with one of the two parties). Now, it is really annoying? Scary? Painful? To watch this go down when you know that all three parties are stubborn people who think that they're right all the time and can't handle it when they're wrong. This happened to me today. I saw this situation unfold, knowing that it was going to. I distanced myself from it as much as I could and didn't get sucked in. The only thing that I learned from the situation is: Even if time has passed, and YOU can laugh about it now; DO NOT bring it up to any of those three parties. I say this because it's tempting, but really not worth it. What I've found is, that party will argue their point in your ear and really who wants to hear that again? Right?