I tend to judge people but it's mostly just so I'll know how to handle interactions with them in the future. I also try to guess how I am judged for the same reason.

She called me, she needed some checks for some certain things to be filed. She quoted the owner and said that these filings were "Vital" she continued by saying that "So, it's very important that they get done."

I afforded myself a smile.


…

They started to talk about real estate. The guy to my left was saying that real estate is usually the safest bet for investing. The guy to my right was saying that it was too risky. I judged the guy to my right to be someone who tries to talk himself up into something he is not. He was talking about issues to impress the guy to my right; the trouble was that guy was a heck of a lot smarter than he appeared to be.

I smiled at the situation and when Lefty caught my grin he asked what I found so funny. "Nothing" I said but the guy to my right said "He knows a little about real estate. Don't you, Tim." My smile got a little bigger. My friend to my right just made the whole situation even funnier to me by throwing me under a bus.

I usually don't like to argue serious things at the bar but I was sort of called out so I was game.

"Well if you spoke to someone in the Eighties and suggested that they invest in real estate—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm talking about today. What's happening now."

I nearly laughed while he gestured and told me to whoa.

"Yeah I know but you just said "Twenty years from now," so if you want to look twenty years into the future, I can look twenty years into the past." I looked to my overweight point maker to see it he was following me. His eyes had a slight bit of a glazed-over look and he was silent. I chanced that he was processing information. "Twenty years in the past is the Eighties. Real estate crashed in the Eighties but today house prices are three to four times what they were back before it crashed. Real estate might drop but it will increase if you can wait it out. In twenty years it tripled, after it crashed."

"That's the problem, 'if you can wait it out' there are people who have overextended themselves and have three or four properties that they can no longer afford."

"So sell some! You can't blame the market for people overextending themselves. You can't blame the market for people's poor decisions."

"How many properties do you own?"

I held up one finger. He just shrugged, dismissively.

"I'm not going to overextend myself."