From an early age we are all taught the simple joys of social interaction, beginning with the most rudimentary exchanges. Such "verbal niceties" make up the first step in learning how to venture out of our respective shells and begin exploring (one hopes) our enchanting social environment: Hello, how are you? I am fine, thanks. Do you like school? Yes, I like school, especially recess. I have a sister. I have a pet iguana. I can ride a bike. I'm not afraid of the dark. Is pizza your favorite food? Mine is ice cream. My favorite show is Sesame Street. Do you have any goldfish? etc. etc. And, as this pattern continues, presumably, we learn to associate fun and adventure with such glib, unself-conscious banter, and gradually, so the theory goes, we become more at ease with these harmless little banal conversations that recur so frequently - minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, every time we turn around, it seems. Because it's normal to be chatty and to use our vocal cords to good effect, to observe, to opine, to share information with our peers. Ah, who is there so cold of heart as to not enjoy the sound of innocent, guileless jibber-jabber in hallways, on playgrounds, at shopping malls? So then, naturally, irrevocably, as day follows night, at some point during this gestation period of youth, we come to learn that this basic ritual of human correspondence known as small talk - this wonderful, bountiful, inescapable prelude to serious dialogue - is, in fact, the easiest thing on earth to master, the most direct way of establishing much-needed contact with persons of whatever social station who happen to be standing or loitering nearby. Any fool can make small talk and I use that word advisedly (see blog title). America runs on small talk because America is full of extroverts and the easiest thing for an extrovert to do is make small talk: Hi. Hello. Nice weather we're having. Don't you think? Supposed to rain next week. Didya see that story in the paper about the missing cat caught in the storm pipe? Oh yeah, that was funny. Here it's only March and I can't wait for football season to begin again. Those dang Celtics are trading away their best players. Think this economy is gonna turn around? Don't know. Hope so. Well, I aim to find myself a good pancake eatery. Yep. That sounds good. Heh, heh, heh, that's a funny shirt you're wearing. Bought it at a yard sale. No way. I swear. Is that one of them tye dye shirts? I believe it is. But for some of us, odd as it may sound, these very ordinary encounters are enough to produce excruciating levels of stress and discomfort - not to mention perspiration and momentary mental paralysis. We make a good faith effort to "jump in the pool" and sometimes we're in the shallow end....and sometimes we're not. Sometimes it's like floating, and sometimes it's more like keeping one's head above water or just treading water, counting, slowly, as the minutes pass, until one of our interlocutors lures us toward the deep end or else decides to splash water on us. And sometimes it's like gasping for breath and feeling the oxygen not being replenished in our lungs. (Not to exaggerate but, that is what it feels like.) And of course the "pool rules" are not prominently displayed anywhere - so now we have a problem. The conversation hits a snag: Hey, chief. What? What the haps? Who...me? Why so serious, there, chief, what's wrong? Nothing...what are you...getting at? Just kiddin, but hey, you DO look uncomfortable, there dude... what gives? Gotta roll with the punches, chief. Are you saying... am I...my face, my shoulders [awkward pause] ....do they bother you? Relax, I'm just teasing, chief. Anyhow [yawn...stretch...looking around...] Think I'll be on my way now. See you later, worried guy. It's hard to completely analyze what goes wrong in these simple conversations - I think it has a lot to do with the feeling of being scrutinized and summarily judged - albeit provisionally and superficially - by another person acting without a search warrant. And if that's not weirdly problematic and insufferable enough, just add a few more high-energy sentient beings to the mix. That's when the warning lights really start to go off in the brain, predicting danger, danger, danger. We introverts - we agitated, "highly sensitive ones" - can almost smell the moment at which people come together for the dubious, open-ended, scary purpose of "letting their hair down" in public - sharing unseemly laughs hitherto unshared, boasting of vices previously kept hidden, losing inhibitions recently sequestered in warehouses, fidgeting like frogs in a bucket, exchanging sordid tales of lust and gluttony, trading insults and put-downs that only add to the festivities, surreptitiously competing to out-do one another in swagger and bravado, making light, making merry, laughing and snorting and cavorting until the room begins to spin and I - must - seek - fresh - air - immediately. What is wrong with this picture.... that anyone (like me) should feel so forlorn and oppressed? Oh Lord, why do we (my fellow introverts and I) feel so bent-out-of-shape in the middle of all this frivolity? Why does it unsettle us so very much when all sense of gravitas and sobriety is swept out of the room? A convention of stand-up comedians could boast of more stability than this. Because these situations are normal, right? People gathering and feeling "comfortable" with one another, talking about neither this nor that - nothing that you'd want recorded for posterity's sake...all that is well and good...and to be encouraged. So says the majority, so goes the way of the world. I get it....because people out there need to talk, to relax, to unwind, to regale, to laugh, to share, to tease, to reveal, to get wild, get crazy, go nuts, get jiggy as part of what they do. And if the majority is happy with that, we'll you know what that means, my fellow "aberrant weeds," my fellow "third wheels," my fellow "biological errors." We become the de facto kill-joys, the nay-sayers, the party-poopers, petulantly pining away for a pity party. But supposing it was really quite unnerving and somewhat traumatic for a certain portion of the population - oh let's say 17% for starters - to endure these common episodes. What if such experiences only served to disorient and confuse, to frazzle and to fluster, to place our nerve-endings on overload, to de-moralize and discourage those of us who are wired, at such moments, to look around (in desperation) for more serious, structured forms of philosophical conversation, which never seem to break out? What then? Oh, I could go on squawking about this incontrovertible issue for the next week and a half, but action, it seems is called for. Two choices remain for us - if any of this stuff happens to resonate with you: pity party in my room (5 minutes), be there, be square or else....we...could... start ...a... REVOLUTION!
