The great housemate dishwashing conversation

It's difficult to have a peaceful adult conversation with somebody about doing the washing-up in the kitchen. Impossible, maybe.

There are really only three likelihoods in the response: denial, defiance, and agreement without action.

• Denial is based upon the fact that one believes he* doesn't use the kitchen much, and doesn't make a mess that he needs to clean up. It's a fallacy, a belief based upon preference.

• Defiance is understandable. The implication is that "you're asking me to do something that as an adult I should already know to do." And that's true. And nobody wants to hear that — nor even the hint of it.

  [And here's where you get disgusted because you have to be diplomatic] — you have to make a grown human being feel like one.

• Agreement without action is almost always the best possible response, because at least it's peaceful. It's useless, but not spiteful nor ignorant.

There is a fourth potential response, of course — but its likelihood is infinitesimal. It's possible that the listener will accept the critique and alter his or her behavior.

I've never seen that.

My use of the pronoun "he" is unfair, except that as a generalization it's better than most.

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