Something shifted in me the day I realized that some arguments are not actually arguments.

They are scripts. Written before you arrived. With a role already assigned to you that has nothing to do with who you actually are or what you actually said. You walked into a conversation that was already finished. You just did not know it yet.

The way you find out is when nothing you say matters.

You make a clear point. It gets dismissed. You clarify. It gets twisted. You soften your tone. It gets interpreted as patronizing. You raise your voice slightly out of frustration. It becomes evidence of aggression. Every move you make gets fed into a machine that was already running before you opened your mouth and everything comes out the other end confirming what the other person decided about you before the conversation started.

This is the casting problem. Some people enter disagreements having already decided what you are. You are the villain. You are the threat. You are the person who always does this. And every word you say gets processed through that filter. Not what you actually said. What the villain they cast you as would have meant by it.

I have been cast as the villain in conversations I walked into trying to help. I have been cast as the enemy in discussions I started with genuine curiosity. I have been made into the problem by people who needed a problem more than they needed a resolution.

It took me a while to stop taking the casting personally.

Because here is the thing about being cast in someone else’s script. It is not actually about you. The role existed before you walked in. If it had not been you filling it someone else would have been assigned the part. The person writing the script needed that character. They needed someone to be wrong so they could be right. Someone to be at fault so they could be innocent. Someone to absorb the anger that was always looking for a target.

You were available. So you got the role.

The healthiest thing you can do when you recognize this happening is refuse the casting. Not with anger. Just with clarity. I am not the character you are describing. I am not having the conversation you are trying to have. When you want to talk about what actually happened I am still here.

Then mean it. Stay available. But stop performing a role you never auditioned for.

The script does not need you in it. The story will find another villain if you step out. And you will get to go home as yourself.

Stephon Rudd