When One-Upping Someone Just Isn't Enough

I’ve never been a fan of people trying to one-up me.

Really, just let me brag for a second. If I want to say that I’m really happy about this amazing shot I made in a basketball game last week, just let me talk about it for a minute. You don’t need to feel like you have to say you made a better shot. In fact, I really don’t care what shot you made. I wanna just talk about me for a minute. We can get to you when I’m done, and you can talk about whatever you want to talk about, as long as you’re not one-upping me.

That’s the normal scenario when you meet a one-upper. It’s always a competition. It’s not about us each being happy for each other… it’s about us being happy for them, no matter whose turn it is to talk, because they are better than us.

Ok, so none of this is new to anyone reading. But a guy I met a while ago might have figured out how to take “one-upping” to a whole new level (or “to a whole ‘nother level”, depending on how red your neck is).

To set the stage, there were four of us in a conference room at work, just waiting for one more to show up so our meeting could begin. To break the silence as we waited, I asked if anyone had heard the new U2 album yet, although no one had. I mentioned that it just may be the first album I’ve bought in years, if it’s even half-way decent. One of the other guys chimes in with some comment about how he bought his first album of the year the week before. Pretty normal conversation so far, right? (Full disclosure – I don’t consider this one-upping, since he was putting himself in a situation where he was not exceedingly more radical than I am).

Then, just as he finished his comment, another guy, who was visiting and whom I have nick-named “The Tripler, King of the One-Uppers” for reasons to be discussed later, blurted out, “I bought 10 new albums, just last week!”

Whoa!!! No way, man!!! You are the coolest!!! Talk about diarrhea of the mouth… well, the rest of us found this to be extremely intriguing, so we began to question him on where he buys his music (“online, man, it’s all online now”), whether he really meant ten ALBUMS or if he really meant ten SONGS (“albums, man, full albums”), if this was a normal habit for him (“yep, I’d say about ten albums per week is my average”), if his wife was ok with his insane spending habit (“of course she is! She doesn’t wear the pants!”), and if there is enough music on earth to keep up with his spending level (“yeah man, I’ll never run out of awesome stuff to listen to”).

As we sat there in shock, eventually the conversation moved on to my antiquated iPod, which I bought in 2006 and haven’t replaced because I’m cheap. Hey it still works, why replace it? Well, another guy pipes up with a comment about how he just replaced his, so now between him and his wife, they have three iPods in the house and it is just too much for them to keep organized and updated etc etc yada yada.

Then, The Tripler jumps in with a doosie, “Between me and my wife, we have nine iPods.”

WHAT?!?!?! Who is your money manager? For that matter, who is your iPod manager? Has Ikea begun making an iPod Shelf yet for people like you (they could call it “The Steve”)?

The rest of us were so shocked, we weren’t sure how to proceed. I began laughing, sort of a snorty, you-gotta-be-joking laugh mixed with a “good one! That’s definitely a knee-slapper” laugh. To my snort-laugh, he turned to me, and with a sober look on his face, said, “Seriously, dude.” I didn’t know how to respond, and I still don’t. I guess he won that conversation.

... so in case you ever really need more than just a normal one-up, you know what to do. Just triple them all!