My friend Mary once said I have “oppositional defiant disorder,” by which I’m pretty sure she meant to be funny and snide. I was mildly annoyed, because it was condescending, but then I’m rude to her on the regular, so I guess she’s entitled.

What she meant is I don’t go along with her expectations, so I decided to take it as a compliment instead, which had the double reward of annoying her right back. She had expected her comment to be a profound zinger, you see.

When I was young, I admit, I often was needlessly contrary. Partly that was because I was afraid people would find I had no social skills and didn’t know how to fit in, so I just decided to claim I was weird on purpose.

I spent my young adulthood unlearning that habit, while figuring out how to exist in the world of other people without being a jerk. And then I realized that a certain degree of being a jerk was baked into me. I therefore spent some decades doggedly solving the problem of how to be a responsible person with a marriage, a job, family responsibilities, friendships, and bills to pay, without mortally offending everyone.

Or at least not deliberately offending them. Because it turns out people get offended all on their own, without my help.

So sometimes, I have to ask myself, “What would I do if I was me?” and then I do that.