Good ol’ social ettiquette. Got skills. Will flounder.
Allergies
As a loud introvert. It is easy for me to confuse. Some cross my path when I am well fed, watered and slept, ready to divulge all that could possibly have happened. Yet when tired, hungry and meeting new people, I will have a reaction. An allergic one. Of my social skills. Putting on a different ‘face’, shorter clipped words, usually a lower range (husky?), a great deal more head bops and generally either too much eye contact or far too little. I start to feel my face, pointedly, in its random segments, cheeks moving, then the debacle as to what to do with my hands comprehensively commandeers the cognitive arena.
Akin to an actor forgetting how to walk when the camera starts rolling, or what to do with your ridiculous arms in a photo when the take cheese has been uttered specifically, vehemently, or your friend’s names when it comes to introducing them to a large, moving as one, not exactly malevolent but certainly something’s iffy group of zealous students or general mob – part of me flips the bird and abandons ship.
Getting it on: Small talk.
The basic skills sets, amassed over the years, ranging from safe topics/ questions to gently delve into someone’s jolly interesting past and the little zinger jokes that you know you slip in, retreat post haste, in a quiet shuffle to the back door, an apologetic wave, I’m sorry softly wafting in their betrayal- wake, leaving you, still with your sight, to perceive the silent havoc behind.
Thing is, you’ve got to utter something, that something being harmonious with the human, scenario, context, future, what they’ve previously said, which you’ve promptly forgotten, panic gluttonously checking in to all the cavernous room in Hotel Head and blasting Avril Lavigne, inappropriately being given another shot at channelling your angst. No. Absolutely desist.
The Tilt
Something snaps, breaks, gets lost in the mail, not completely, comprehensively, irretrievably, but certainly very far from the situation, where the need is pulsating with every throb of blood around your particularly pink, lightly steaming face- Where the basic functions of walking, talking, standing or memory, are justifiably and simply called upon. This is when my knees quiver, when their sweet strange heads tilt ever so slightly to the left, the dangerous and hair raising angle of sincere, and warranted perplexity. Why stop the shindig there? To give your chipper, ambitious mind a boost, you might as well start to transcribe an internal dialogue of their mind.
“ I perceived you as capable; I perceived you as being competently co-ordinated mentally and physically: trundling to the donut table, previously waxing lyrical as to beautiful sunset you captured, tweaked and filtered, to get ‘dem lykes and fan-faring to your close friends, complete with names and anecdotes, witty witty banter ricocheting in joyous abandon across the room. How much of my confused quota- eye squint will you consume? I smell a schism, and you are not constructing a bridge.”
Good Party Hey
In the rising befuddlement at the ineptitude that seems to be jiving over what I have been so competent at for time immemorial, that of walking, talking, following a conversation and dealing with eye contact, darkly comedic introspection ensues and the scrounging for legerity is seems somewhat pithy. Granted eye contact, blinking and providing the dynamite for sustained sparkling conversation, conducting all these tasks concurrently, is an unfair socially constructed onus that we must adhere to, succumb to. Just imagine if, the following would be zealously received:
– So good party hey – C
– Yup – A
– So, what are you contributing to the advancement of mankind? – C
– At the moment, perhaps not too much, just a mite of facetious floundering. I think it’s part of my rite of passage. It is tiring though. Not being prophetic. Just trusting. From breakfast till dinner and the meals in between. Don’t worry. I have agency. I can do washing, regularly or less regularly. – A
– Yeah, that’s sounds rather cumbersome. Would you enjoy a reprieve from this small talk to nurse your raison d’etre, work, emotional and future instability? – C
– Yeah I would. Thanks man. – A
Napping Normatives
I’m fairly certain multitasking has been expunged as an effective, productive ideology and lifestyle, yet some hypocrisies perpetuate. Small talk perpetuates. Needing to perform basic functions under duress perpetuates. I stand by the notion that small talk at parties, even bursting with all of the beans, in all of the land, can and certainly has been duress. Certainly I’ve felt the pressure to assuage my substance as a human, a great deal of education has been sunk into this little number. Oh but to dream, I am in eager expectation of the day when napping on the couch, happy chatters milling around is the accepted normative.
Sweet, Sweet Internal Narrative
For once you’ve activated the introspective micro component awareness gage, you are no longer a natural, objective, educated person, but a quivering mess of existential crisis;
It must certainly not be healthy to blink as much as that?
What was their pony called?
Who is Robert? The uncle or cousin?
What is a hedge fund?
How many buzzwords to do with finance can I muster? Portfolio, NPV, forecast, capital markets, depreciation add back, BETA, WACC, million dollar billz.
I must stop asking what their dream is. But what’s your real dream?
Do they enjoy Kendrick Lamar? What do they think of the undercurrent discourse in his work?
Politics. Am I Right?
Do you like travelling? They like travelling. Oh, the question about the ‘real’ beauty of Paris is rising in my throat.
How many times have I touched my face, hair, said the word juxtaposition? Stop using the word juxtaposition.
I know. The veritable thrill.
The Charleston
So to all of you who have met/ will meet one such as I, when there is nothing in the tank;
We have words. We have hands that can sculpt the air to make a point. We have memory. We have the next conversation topic. But we can water only so many new friendship plains. The energy, the juices having previously being siphoned off from the sincere, albeit odd, eccentric, quirky but buoyant, earnest, kind and open conversation we want to now have, with you. Yet we are and that conversation is doing the real excited dance, bopping manically, to burst forth and jumble through the Charleston with you. After some Thai food. A snooze. And blankly staring out the window.
a.
but for this brief reprieve, 