it is... so validating when you learn you were right about something the whole time (family drama)

i think i've complained before about how difficult my brother is

how we can never get along, and how that's mostly his fault. Yes, it takes two to argue, but when i state an opinion

(this could be anything from 'i don't want to eat my lamb with mint sauce' to 'i think the love triangle in the Hobbit movie was dumb'--which are both arguments WE HAVE ACTUALLY HAD)

that is not an invitation to start an actual fight with me over why my opinion is wrong

i used to talk with him about other stuff that is not opinion based but stopped because he'd fight with me about that too

at the very least opinions cannot be argued about unless they're really bad opinions, like about other people and whether or not they should exist. That kind of thing. Having an opinion about not liking sauce or not liking part of a movie is subjective and nothing worth arguing about

and yet...

anyway

i met up with my sister today and somehow we started talking about him. I don't remember exactly how but i think i was the one that steered the conversation in that direction, maybe

but apparently if i come up in conversation AT ALL

he starts cursing my name and insulting me

which is just. Bro. Bro, what the fuck

was i a bit of a bully myself growing up? sure. I mean. I was a kid. We're only three years apart, what do you want from me. All kids are cruel before a certain age

and i had some major anger issues when i was younger, i've been working on those haha

but i can't think of a single time since he was a teenager where we fought and it wasn't mutual or him goading me into it

so i can't see those as me being any more in the wrong than he is

the only things i can think of is either he's always been upset i'm the oldest, but my dude i can't change that

or he was upset that i didn't just let him win arguments

tbh that actually makes sense, i jsut thought of that

the other thing that came up in our discussion is that apparently when they got parts in plays, bro would get a bit part like a tour guide and sis would often get the main part

and apparently my parents would overly praise bro and not say more than a single word to sis

bro did need some special help when he was a kid, i recall he needed special help with his reading for sure

so maybe our parents never quite turned that off?

but if so, i think maybe it translated into bro feeling like he needs to always win or something like that

i remember that he cried one time when me and sis were beating him at parchisi

and this is why i never play board games with him

oooh now i remember, we were discussing how bro really wanted to go to China for some reason

me, knowing people who have worked in China and not liked it: /says something about how 'i hope he doesn't act the way he acts around me while he's there'
sis: doubt