Originally Posted by chasm54

It isn't about challenging an error, or whatever. It's about one's taste in conversation. For me, debate is conversation. I don't much care if you're wrong, or I'm right, or vice versa. I'm often wrong, it's the human condition, it doesn't damage my self-esteem to discover I'm mistaken. Similarly, discovering that you are mistaken doesn't persuade me that you're an idiot. The conversation is about the issue, not about who is cleverer than whom.

But the point is that debating what is, and is not, is what keeps one interested and interesting, imo. Trivial chit-chat about the weather and so forth simply isn't worth the breath - or, in this case, the typing. Clearly, others have different tastes. That is as it should be, we're all different, in our approach to discourse as everything else.

Many years ago, I had a discussion with a friend who was - is - conspicuously brilliant and had married a woman who was massively less intelligent than him. He explained that he got all the intellectual challenge he needed at work, and from his friends, and he didn't want it at home. I was staggered, I can't imagine living with anyone who didn't enjoy giving me an argument about what I think and believe.