Date: April 22, 2025
Author: Riley Matthews
I’m not proud of it, but I’ve started to really despise pedantic people. It wasn’t always this way, but the more I interact with certain types of people, the more I feel this irritation grow into something darker. It’s almost like I can’t stand the sound of their voices or the way they pick apart the smallest details, as if the whole world depends on it.
And I know exactly where it comes from. There’s a part of me that’s a little bit like them, a part of me that feels the need to control and perfect things because it was a survival mechanism I picked up early on in life. Growing up, my father was compulsive and particular—never violent, but cruel in other ways. He would humiliate me in front of friends, in public, making me feel small and worthless in a way I couldn’t escape. His need for things to be perfect, for every detail to be scrutinized, drove me to become someone who also needed to have things just right, just to stay emotionally intact. It wasn’t because I wanted to be that way. It was because I had no choice.
I learned how to be compulsive, how to control the things I could, just to keep my head above water. If I could make everything just so, maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t become the target of another of his outbursts. Maybe, if everything was perfect, I wouldn’t be embarrassed or made to feel like I was the problem. So, I became a person who was overly particular in my own way, trying to compensate for the damage I took on. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until much later in life.
And now, when I see people doing the same thing—overanalyzing every little thing, nitpicking over trivial details—it triggers something inside me. It reminds me of him, of the pressure to always be perfect, to always be right, just to avoid the shame and judgment. I hate that part of myself, the part that makes me want everything to be flawless to feel okay, because I know it comes from a place of deep emotional damage.
I moved out as soon as I could, trying to escape the emotional toll of living under that constant scrutiny. It wasn’t the best decision—I left with a lot of unresolved issues, but at least I wasn’t in the line of fire anymore. I’ve made my peace with it as best as I can, but these days, the pedantic people I encounter remind me of all the reasons I resent that part of myself. And no matter how much I work on it, I’m still learning to live with the frustration and the anger I have for those who bring that kind of energy into the world. It’s not their fault, but it’s hard not to feel that way.
I just wish it wasn’t so hard to escape those patterns.
