See Wiki's own Wolfgang?.
The conversation continued for an hour or so after this point, with some more personal details being involved. I'm not sure how I feel about telling Robert so much about my private life. It makes me uneasy to talk about my life with somebody over the Internet—especially someone like Robert. It's creepy having my personal life and my "Internet life" mixing together like this.
So, I think I'll be more discrete from now on. Robert told me he's still visiting this site, and has read through my diary. I'm not going to censor my diary, but I will try to impose a bit of self-censorship on our conversations, for my peace of mind.
It's so mind-numbingly frustrating to talk to Robert. The guy just does not listen to reason, he's so convinced he's right.
The time-honored problem: How do you convince somebody who's delusional that they're delusional? It's easy enough to convince others that the person is delusional, but the person themself?
I know exactly what Robert is thinking, but it doesn't help one whit. Thank God for the fact that in life you don't have to get every action or thought of yours approved by others before you can do something. I can only trust that I am not like him, that I am right when I trust in my own judgment. If somebody tried to tell me otherwise, well... I don't know. Would I stick to my guns, or would I be open minded enough to listen to them? And what if I listened, but disagreed? Would I be self-delusional, or just Right?
I think I'm honest enough with myself to be able to question myself, to not just blindly trust in myself. It's like knowing if you're crazy or not.
I saw a Twilight Zone episode where a man woke up, and nobody knew him—not his wife, his co-workers, or his friends. He was convinced that he was not crazy, but that everybody else was. Now, of course that would be a person's immediate reaction. It's just not reasonable to have to accept that you're crazy, no one would do that.
Except, I think I would. My first thought upon watching that episode was, "If I were in this situation, I'd have to accept that I'm crazy. It's not just reasonable to think the whole world is wrong, and you are right."
It turned out of course that he wasn't crazy. But even after the show ended, I was convinced that he was.