The pleasure of proving someone wrong
On the quiet thrill of being right when someone was certain you were wrong
I've been in my head quite a bit lately… lots of heavy essays and big feelings. I recently rewatched the final season of Curb as a palate cleanser and ended up thinking way too hard about why watching Larry David be proven right is basically a spiritual experience. So, please consider this your light reading. x
There’s no high quite like being right when someone was confident you were wrong.
I’m not talking about winning an argument through rhetoric or wearing someone down until they concede. I’m talking about the specific pleasure of a verifiable outcome. You said X would happen. They said you were wrong and maybe even laughed at you. Then X happened. And now you just get to... exist. Silently correct. Vindicated by reality itself.
We’re supposed to pretend we don’t enjoy this. "I told you so" is considered rude, petty, or ungracious. The mature thing is to just let it go, resist the urge to gloat, be humble in your victory. Nobody likes a sore winner.
But let’s be honest, few things feel better than a prediction paying off in front of someone who dismissed it.
This is a universal experience, even if nobody wants to admit they see themselves in it. In fact, only one man has had the courage to build an entire body of work around it.
Larry David, patron saint of petty vindication, blessed be his name.
Half of Curb Your Enthusiasm is just Larry being proven right about something everyone told him he was wrong about. He insists on some small, seemingly unreasonable point, everyone dismisses him, and then, like divine intervention, reality delivers. The universe always bends toward Larry. The truth reveals itself. The doubters are silenced.
And then Larry gets to make the face. You know the face. The slight squint, the barely suppressed satisfaction, the expression of a man who has been touched by the hand of cosmic justice and is trying (barely) not to gloat.
The show works because we recognize ourselves in it. Larry is our id, externalized. He says the “I told you so” we’re socially prohibited from saying. He dies on hills we’d be too embarrassed to die on, and then he’s resurrected when those hills turn out to be correct. He is petty for us, so we can remain polite. A martyr for the quiet scorekeepers. An icon.
I’m lighting a candle for him as we speak.
The pleasure is of course proportional to how condescending the original dismissal was.
If someone politely disagreed with you, being proven right is satisfying but mild. No big deal, everyone moves on.
But if they were smug about it… if they rolled their eyes, or laughed, or explained in that patient tone people use when they think they’re dealing with an idiot, if they said “that’s not how any of this works” or “you clearly don’t understand”?
Oh, that payoff is exquisite. It’s not even about the original point anymore, it’s about the condescension meeting consequences. They didn’t just disagree, they dismissed you. And now reality has issued a correction on your behalf.
The reason this feels so good is that it’s one of the few situations where you don’t have to argue.
Most disagreements don’t resolve cleanly. People debate values, interpretations, unfalsifiable opinions. You can argue forever without closure because there’s no objective arbiter.
But sometimes there is an arbiter. The project fails or succeeds. The person turns out to be exactly who you said they were. The decision they insisted was right blows up in exactly the way you warned.
You don’t have to say anything because the universe says it for you.
The “I told you so” is actually optional, which is part of what makes it so satisfying.
The most powerful version is silence. Everyone knows. You know, they know, the room knows. Saying it would almost cheapen it, like explaining a joke. The unsaid version is louder.
Often the other person can’t help themselves anyway. They’ll mutter some version of “okay, fine, you were right” just to clear the air, because your silence is unbearable. And that’s even better—being so obviously correct that they acknowledge it unprompted.
Chef’s kiss.
I should distinguish between being proven right about facts and being proven right about people.
Facts are uncomplicated. You said the capital of Australia was Canberra, they insisted Sydney, Google settled it. Clean.
People are messier. When you warned someone ”he’s not trustworthy,” “she’s going to flake,” “this guy is bad news,” and then that person does exactly what you predicted, the vindication mixes with something else. You were right, but someone you care about got hurt.
Still feels good though, I’m not going to lie about that. The Cassandra situation—where you warn and warn and nobody listens—is its own special frustration. When the thing finally happens, at least you stop feeling crazy!
There’s a social taboo against admitting this, which is exactly why I’m admitting it. We’re supposed to be gracious and always prioritize the relationship over being right. Let people save face.
And fine, I do those things in practice. It’s not like I walk around delivering “I told you so” speeches to everyone who was wrong about something I was right about. That would be insufferable.
But internally, there’s a quiet scoreboard. Not for everything because most disagreements don’t even matter, but for the ones where someone was dismissive or made me feel stupid or wielded their confidence like a weapon…
Yeah. I’m keeping track. And when reality vindicates me, I enjoy a private moment of satisfaction I will never apologize for.
The irony is, if we admitted this was universal, being wrong might sting less.
If we all acknowledged that being proven right feels good, maybe being proven wrong wouldn’t feel like a moral failure. You made a prediction, it didn’t pan out, you update. The other person gets their internal moment of satisfaction, you acknowledge the L, everyone moves on.
But we attach our egos to our positions and defend them past reason, so being wrong feels like humiliation and being right feels like triumph.
I’m not above this, like I said, I’m fully in the game. I like being right. When someone condescending turns out to be incorrect, I feel a warm glow that probably isn’t spiritually evolved but is absolutely human.
The universe doesn’t hand out vindication often… but when it does, I think we’re allowed to appreciate it.
PS: If you enjoyed this, I recommend “The difference between being right and being interesting” next.
Spot on about the proportionality between condescension and satisfaction. The Larry David comparison works perfectly bc the show basically runs on that exact dynamic of quiet vindication. What makes it even more interesting is how the taboo around admitting this creates its own layer of social theater where everyone pretends they don't keep score while absolutly keeping score.
I needed a hit of BGM today whilst waiting for your latest and found this one, PEOPLE JUST WANT TO BE OPRESSED NOW. As usual I was floored by your grasp of the obvious that seems so ignored these days. Everyone should be talking about this shit! You're truly brilliant! You're writing which is always impressive was off the chain in that essay and left me wondering if you had gotten a vocabulary for Christmas! I'm messin' wit ya of course, I love reading you AND your words! I'll follow your posts forever and I'd even follow you to hell if you'd lead!
THX
TD