How to Deal with an Opinionated Person

Dear TEAMS,

We’ve all met them when we least expect it.  We’re with a group of people and the conversation is going well and people are laughing and having a great time.  Then one person—sometimes he/she has been quieter than the rest—says something about the topic at hand that makes everybody stop and listen.  What follows in the next few minutes is sentence after sentence about his/her opinion about the topic, and it is generally very radical and punctuated with animated gestures, passion, and feeling.  After he/she stops, one of two things happen:  1) awkward silence followed by someone else saying something to generate a little laughter and get the group back to its original equilibrium; or 2) another person from a differing viewpoint begins to speak his/her own opinion addressing the issues of the first.  One by one, group members pull away until the two (or three) left are there by themselves without even realizing it.

I speak this with confidence because in my teens and early twenties, I tended to be the vocal one, usually about spiritual and religious topics.  I truly had no idea that others wouldn’t naturally want to hear my position on things, in that everyone had just been talking about the topic.  And, of course, since it was about God (and I was generally with Christians), it never even dawned on me that people wouldn’t want to talk about Him and debate interpretations of the Bible.  Thankfully, in the many years since, Father has transformed my mind into an even greater concept and truth about Truth.  

I was walking with one of you this morning and you related that recently something just as I explained above happened to you at a party.  You were taken aback, but you also highly regarded this person and wondered if you had missed something in your own beliefs.  I was flattered that you wanted my opinion on the subject the person had the strong opinion on, but I also wanted to help you get a life lesson out of the whole deal.

My time is currency, and I value it as such.  Because of that, I have learned how to be efficient when I am now faced with a situation as this.  Here is my Rule of Thumb when faced with a person such as this.

A person who has a strong, divergent opinion about something warrants listening and engagement if, and only if,

1. I would characterize his/her life as one of contentment;
2. I would describe him/her as “very accepting” of other people;
3. He/she is known for being a peaceful person in word and deed.

If I cannot score a person with at least a 2.5 (meaning 2 of them are true and one is sometimes true), I simply smile and at the first possible break in the conversation, I excuse myself.  And please note, the Holy Spirit always trumps the Rule of Thumb.  If I feel a niggle to stay because God wishes me to minister to them somehow, I hang tight.  But that simply doesn’t happen a lot.

You know my heart and that I am not a mean person.  You also know I am a big fan of the underdog.  But I will tell you that with years of experience with people as this, and being a reformed one myself, this is the absolute best use of my time with them and also serves them by respectfully teaching them another reality.  Namely, that people are more important than being right, and 9 times out of 10, you’re not right anyway because you will change.

If you think about it, Jesus did this ALL THE TIME.  I mean, seriously, who could be more right than Jesus?  Yet, He never hit people over the head with what He believed (which happened to be Truth), but put everything through a filter of love and compassion and speaking to the listeners in a way that would draw them in.  The three questions I ask myself at these times (Is he/she content, accepting of people, peaceful in word and deed?) actually have a deeper revelation to them, but I guess that’s for another post if it ever comes up again.

And please, if you’re ever in a group talking and you notice people are leaving you, evaluate if you might need to change the subject!

Love,

POINTING PERSON
© Dawn Hudson | Dreamstime.com