No one can tell you what someone else said. They can only tell you what they heard.

No one can tell you what someone else said. They can only tell you what they heard.

On top of that, if I’m telling you what someone else said I’m probably not going to tell you what I said that provoked their response.

Look, I care about all sorts of foolish things. I care about winning and losing at video games. So I’m not going to tell anyone, “you shouldn’t care what other people think.” Getting judgmental about what I or anyone else “should” care about doesn’t work for me.

But here’s the reality.

Any private conversation between two people has a lot to do with the relationship between those two people. The actual subject matter is just whatever’s left over.

So if they didn’t say it in my presence then they didn’t say it at all.