Obviously, you all know about “sour grapes”, i.e. someone claiming that something they failed to achieve or cannot afford it not all that great anyway. This goes back to a fable by Aesop. Recently, though, I came across a pattern that goes beyond that. The context is that there is someone in my extended family who semi-regularly talks to me. He is older than me, but single and childless, so he cannot relate to people older than him in this social circle who all have their own family, and he cannot easily speak to people younger than him because the age gap is quite large. In a way, he has missed the boat. In a social context, though, it is normally not a good idea to make someone lose face, so you can easily end up in situations you would otherwise not encounter.

This guy can be quite negative. As I do not speak that frequently with him, it is not that noticeable. Perhaps he simply had a bad day or a bad week, because the last time I had a conversation with him, it seemed that everything was bad. He was not even that explicit, but when he spoke about his car, by now a fifteen-year old sedan from a high-quality marque, he was adamant that if it broke down, he would get the very same model once again because newer cars were all inferior. He kept going. Asking about what laptop I had, I mentioned that my main machine was a 15″ MacBook. Upon hearing this, he responded that his is a 13″ MacBook but that it was a better choice because there was no point in having a bigger screen anyway. I had no interest in arguing with him. Besides, it struck me as silly so I just let him keep talking. I did not have the impression that he wanted to seriously debate the issue anyway.

The most absurd claim he made was when he spoke about his apartment. He has an interest in construction, so he asked me about the place I rent. Upon hearing that my expenses for heating are quite moderate because that house is well-insulated, he disputed this, arguing that you need to spend less money for heating in a poorly insulated house. The argument he made was that single or double-pane windows do not block sun rays so even in autumn and winter the house warms up. This was patent nonsense because temperatures are not nearly high enough, and sunshine is quite limited. Even if the sun comes out for a few hours and you have a peak temperature of a few degrees Celsius above zero, you still need to heat your place. Besides, whenever there are sub-zero temperatures, you can easily see that the snow around an old and poorly insulated house melts, which is not the case in a more modern house.

The details I just mentioned are not even that important. However, I found it interesting that this guy managed to go beyond the sour-grapes parable. Not only are the grapes sour, he is better off not having any grapes at all. I have not come across this pattern before. It is too bad that this did not happen in an online conversation with someone I did not know because then I could have properly responded, for instance by provocatively asking if it is better to have an ugly wife instead of an attractive one. Well, in that case, such a guy would probably tell you that it is better because this means that other men will not lust after her. Similarly, it is probably better to be poor than rich because it makes you appreciate the value of money more. There is probably a way to turn everything around, no matter how ridiculous it may sound.