2 contradictory things about me: I can’t back away from an argument, but I’m an anxious, nervous wreck while I’m in one. I’m like a twitchy terrier gnawing on a slipper. I am trying to learn how to disengage from a conflict that has no value to me, win or lose.

I know, I know, you’re assuming these arguments are husband-wife feuds, but it could not be further from the truth. We do a pretty good job at talking things through and keeping things cool and level here. Yes, there are the rare boil over moments, but I suspect these are unavoidable side-effects to living with any human being, and we recover from these ‘I’m angry and I HAVE NO REASON TO BE’ episodes pretty well.

In fact, the wife is a part of my new fighting strategy. Like the sensible wingman who talks you out of taking a run at that big scary dude who stepped on your foot at the bar, she’s going to tell me ‘it’s not worth it, just leave it’ when I’m heading into a stupid fight. And, I will try very hard to hear her words and hopefully snap out of my compulsive combativeness.

The need to argue until the other person agrees that I’m right is fueled by self-confidence issues. Your faith in yourself is such a primary building block of social interaction that it affects all of your relationships. You fight extra hard to defend your opinion when deep down you don’t fully trust it. So being okay with other people being wrong and not listening to me is another step to take.

Also, I am compiling a list of people who it is never productive to argue with. So far I have:

1. My mother. ‘Nuff said.

2.Pregnant ladies. Arguing with them is a no-win scenario. No matter how wrong they might be, everyone hates the asshole arguing with the pregnant lady. Plus, they are in the middle of the most complicated biological event a human can have, so I will give them a free pass from now on.

If anyone else makes my ‘no argue’ list, I’ll be sure to let you know.

(Politics again, at least to start things off. You have been warned)

I made a mistake and spent the last 10 minutes of my evening on Wednesday watching the political analysts on CBC discussing the upcoming election. They are all certain that the Conservatives are going to walk into a majority on May 2, and that sent me into a teeth-grinding fit of frustration as I was trying to get to sleep.

But finally, after tossing back and forth for almost an hour, I realized something about the nature of polling and the alchemy of elections. No matter what a particular poll might say, the election isn’t final until the votes have been counted. What a tiny sample group may have said to a phone pollster is a poor indicator of the actual mood of the country’s millions of voters.

But creating this illusion of certainty and inevitability works in the Conservative’s favour. It is the laziest way to court the undecided voter. I suspect that a lot of these voters are the people who want to go with the flow and they will vote the way that the country expects them to vote. The party puts forth the assumption ‘we are going to win a majority’ and the media starts to repeat it, strengthening the claim. A few selectively chosen poll results are tossed into the mix, and voila! The people of the fence vote blue, and democracy gets a kick in the throat. And, by giving in to the despair myself, I was adding strength to this version of the political reality.

So what does that mean for anyone who is passionate about getting rid of Harper? It means we have to stop accepting the failure narrative. It ain’t over ’til it’s over. We have to make our voices heard as we spread the message to the undecided in the middle: There is hope. Everything is not yet lost. WE CAN WIN.

I mean, c’mon, we’re up against a pudgy white bread of a man who’s afraid of reporters and one-on-one debates. He’s hoping that most of us stay quiet and stop asking the questions that make him look bad. Because when we ask questions, the decent people in his party start to ask too, and the answers might just make those sensible Conservatives stay home.