I never say it nowadays. I wait for the other person to say, “You were right.”. That’s much more satisfying.
I nearly always say it and I nearly always hate to hear it.
I’ve been told it is one of my least endearing traits. And no doubt it is true. In my defense though, I usually tell people: you know, if I’m wrong no harm is done, but if I’m right, you’ll have to hear me say “I told you so.”
Case in point: At a client’s site we had our software installed and a computer - but there was no back up process in place. (How crazy is that?)
I told my business partner that an external drive was cheap, as is Norton Ghost. I even told him that for less than 150 bucks, we not only were more secure, he wouldn’t have to hear me say I told you so if the machine went bad.
The machine went bad within two months. He ordered Ghost and an external drive the next day.
I voted “occasionally” as I will say it on a minor who-heck-really-cares issue but I don’t say it on big issues. Well, not to the person’s face, anyway. It’s sheer coincidence that I go out in the woods and shout “I told you so!” while doing my Superior Dance.
If we have a disagreement and you are a stupid butthead about it and you being wrong cost me time/effort/aggravation you WILL get a “I told you so”. And I probably won’t be terribly nice about it either. And if your stupidity also cost you in time/effort/aggravation I won’t have much sympathy either.
This doesn’t happen very often though and its usually my SO that pulls this crap.
I try never to say I told you so. Usually my husband says, “Oh, this you meant. I guess you told me and I just didn’t listen.” I say, “Yup,” and we move on. Luckily he doesn’t say I told you so much either.
I voted “sometimes”, but when I do, it’s more of a meta-I-told-you-so than the classic version.
In my teenage years, I was one of those insufferable know-it-alls who took great pleasure at spouting out unbidden any half-remembered trivia even tangentially relevant to the topic of discussion. After encountering others who behaved that way, though, I came to realize that all it does (other than paint you as a bloviating jerk) is set you up for a huge fall when someone inevitably proves you wrong about any one of the seventeen useless tidbits you most recently spewed.
Because of that, these days, I almost always err in the opposite direction, offering up — if I feel the need to speak up at all — the humblest of statements, bookended neatly with sincere “hmm, I think…” and "…but I’m not 100% certain"s. When you do it that way, it’s just as impressive if you’re right, and yet damned near impossible to get IN-YOUR-FACE’d by a passing Googler.
The upshot of all that is that nowadays, if I do take a hardline stance on something factual…well, I won’t say I’m never wrong, but you’d best believe I’m full well dead-to-rights positive of whatever I said. And if I offer to put money on it, that’s your cue to back down gracefully.
Now, the actual point: I know a few trivia-hound bullshitters who ought to know me well enough to have gotten that last point by now, and yet they’ll still try to bluff me down when I stand my ground. Them, I told-you-so the FUCK out of, and always throw in that I told 'em I’d told 'em so, too.
You left out “I hate to say I told you so…”
How about, “I informed you thusly”?
mmm
My Army unit went from Ft. Bragg down to Florida to help with Hurricane Andrew recovery. Later I came back and went to my mother’s house on the coast of North Carolina. There I predicted that during the next hurricane to hit North Carolina, a certain oak tree would fall on my mother’s house. It did. I have been told by my family that I can never use the phrase: “I told you so” again
I never say ‘I told you so’ or words to that effect, but sometimes, when I have been proven right by events and said events have not necessarily come to the attention of the other party (usually in a work setting), I factually notify them of the development (without reference to the disagreement), to put the record straight.
When the wrong person is a close relative, it is customary for my family to give them an “I told you so” look and, when they react, exclaim “I ain’t said nothin’!”
There have also been instances (not just with my family, also with coworkers), where person A said something, person B refused to listen, then person A was proved right and, after this had happened enough times, it was person C who said “you know, B, it might behoove you to listen to A’s warnings!”
I do this. I also say “I told you so” often, but only to my husband, and only about stupid things like disputes about actors and cooking. I guess the exact phrase “I told you so” is used less often than the look or a simple “ha HA!” Maybe my “often” vote should have been an “occasionally.”
I couldn’t help it. I chose both “Never right…” and “Never wrong…” just because I could.
To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever said the phrase “I told you so,” in anything other than jest. I have occasionally said something like, “I tried to explain that to you” in the first instance and “You were right, I should have [whatever]” in the second.
The way I was raised, victory does not trump courtesy.
Agree with both tdn and Lacunae.
I voted that I’m fine with other people saying “I told you so”, but never say it myself.
Rarely, I might point out to someone the equivalent of “I told you so”, but not using those words, because they will cause annoyance. So…my vote might be somewhat misleading.
It’s rare anyway, because in most discussions I find it’s easier to let people shift their position into what I had said all along, than try to get them to admit they were wrong about something.
I’d like to point out that I said it first, and you should all be following my lead.
What?
The only times I’m inclined to say “I told you so” is when something is supposed to be my area of expertise and yet for some reason a client or employer override me despite me going to great and verbose lengths to explain why doing it their way would be a reallybad idea.
I don’t like it when they do that, when I have to cope with and work within the mess that their bad decision has created, so when the whole thing melts and topples, YES, I point and I tell them “SEE?! I told you so!”
Just an ordinary debate, no, or at least rarely.
I checked with both Aslan and Athena about this. The Great Lion opines that that statement is so often a lie that the occasional times that it’s not are statistically significant. The Goddess simply snorted and laughed and went back to her scheming.
Hmm sounds very similar to me. In fact a lot of posts in this thread remind me of me. I suppose most people on these forums like interesting facts (and telling other people interesting facts) and it’s no surprise that it made us annoying little… things… before we grew up. I’m guessing there are plenty of people here who also like interesting facts but haven’t grown out of being dicks about it… but who is going to post in this thread to say how obnoxious they are?