rationalizing

I've been talking to someone who seems to have a rational roadblock for important conversations. Yesterday, we talked about how a family member wanted a bigger celebration initiated by the others. The person I was talking to said changing someone's behavior is a fallen venture, when I asked if they had addressed how they felt about how the person address the issue. I knew something was up, but I couldn't articulate it at the time so I let it go. But later we talked about the unfortunate adventure I had on the a line to Rosedale with the Predator, and I brought up the line about changing someone's behavior. And they admitted that you can change someone's behavior with their environment. So changing someone's behavior isn't a fallen venture.

today, as I think about it, I realize that this person maybe rationalizing to avoid having serious conversations about feelings. I have that and a different conversation to fall back on for this hypothesis. this particular person seems very invested in rationalizing their way out of things rather than rationalizing their way into things. I suppose I'm the more pragmatic thinker, between us, which is rare. I see being pragmatic often being mislabeled as "emotional response", or "reactionary" - which are labels that are socially assigned to be written off. Functionally speaking, every response is an emotional response - even the response to ignore.

I also remembered that rationalizing is a step in an abuse cycle.