incensed

have you ever had the right conversation with the wrong person? it usually only becomes apparent after the conversation has ended, and it becomes glaringly obviously that for some reason you should not have said something that you said to that particular individual.

i just had a conversation about my feelings about the mismanagement of funding within the department of athletics at the university of guelph, and the bias of the track and field head coach against people that do not compete as distance runners. this conversation let out a lot of pent up anger and even led to me learning new things about this particular individual. but, the conversation was with one of his assistant coaches. not the best idea i ever had. the guy i was talking to, we'll call him H. did not essentially agree with my opinion - which is fine, and i don't expect that everyone should - and i get the feeling now that i was somehow offending him by talking negatively about the other individual.

i rarely find myself in positions where i regret saying certain things, but i do think that we sometimes have to choose our battles so to speak, and bringing up that topic with that individual was not a battle i should have fought. i appreciate his patience and understanding in listening to me, but even over the course of the conversation, as i was trying to explain my point of view, H. defended the other man. H.'s verbal support of the head coach follows my admission of some ignorance and comparatively different experience with the man in question. of course H.'s opinion would be different than my own: he deals with the man ("S.") as a colleague, or peer, not as an athlete; he has been privy to information about situations that i have not; he has seen the management of teams other than the ones at guelph, and can more accurately assess whether a team is functional or not; and, he himself is also a distance runner, and coaches distance athletes.

i found the conversation, near the end, became very defensive on my part. i had already asserted that my opinion was borne of my own personal experience with S. and i didn't expect that H. would have a similar perspective. but, i was hoping H. might be able to maintain a little bit more objectivity than he did.

this whole thing is so obscure to anyone reading it, and i'm sorry for that. i just needed to get the feeling of a weight off my chest. nobody that would understand it is around, so instead of telling someone i know i thought i'd just tell a bunch of internet strangers. thanks for listening.