“I hate to be the one to tell you ‘I told you so,’ but…”
“No, you don’t. If you really hated to be the one, you wouldn’t have said so; it’s a false premise. I hate to be the one to tell you that but apparently somebody needs to. If you were being honest, you wouldn’t have used that lead-in. You would have begrudged saying what you thought I needed to hear. You only wanted to prove your point.
“Besides, I just told you this bad thing that happened to me and you want to talk about how you were right all along. It’s like you didn’t even hear what I said. You wanted to jump ahead so that I would know you knew what I should have done. I wonder if you even cared when I first told you about my problem.
“Don’t you think I remember your advice? Isn’t that why I’m giving you an update now? I don’t need to be reminded that I was wrong, much less that you were right. Focus on me. I am the one who needs to be recognized right now.
“What you should have done, from the beginning, was listen to me—like Job’s friends before they started jabbering. They sat in silence with him for a week. Yes, I know my situation isn’t anything like Job’s but I only wanted a friend to sympathize with me.
“Now that I think of it, I don’t remember asking you for advice. If you’re the kind of person who thinks it’s okay to say ‘Told ya so,’ I’ll bet you anything you’re the kind of person who thinks people want to hear their unsolicited advice.
“Anyway, you didn’t know your advice would have worked. You still don’t. You didn’t know the future any more than I did. Even now, we can’t know what I should have done. There are too many factors. We’re looking at the problem in hindsight, so we think what should have happened is obvious, now. But it’s still complicated.
“’Told ya so’ is salt on a wound. I’m in a bad place and I’m not telling you to be reminded of it. Why am I still talking to you? What was it you thought I needed to hear?”
Scot Bellavia
