Stop explaining yourself.
I can’t stress this enough. If you don’t want to look like a moron on a regular basis, if you don’t want to force others to have to conclude you are stupid, for the love of all that is Good and Beautiful and True, stop explaining yourself, your reasons, your decisions, and your actions.
Seriously, just stop. Consider the word “because” a period. Stop right there. When you hear yourself saying it, let it be your signal to end the sentence right there.
First, nobody cares. If they want to know your reasons, they will ask you for them. And be aware that if they are asking for them, there is a very good chance they are looking to argue with you, dispute your position, or at least convince you to change your mind.......
Here’s how people know that you’re part of the greater retardery in which we are engulfed. When you explain yourself, and then your explanation is conclusively demonstrated to be substantively false in some way, you do not change your position. This informs your interlocutor that there is nothing inside and there is no point in attempting to engage with you on the dialectical level.