EARTH BITES-MOMENTS IN LIFE THAT ARE AWKWARD, CLUMSY OR EMBARRASSING
Somebody made a set of social rules that most of us try to follow to a fairly consistent degree. The problem is that circumstances have made the rules more difficult to follow to the letter of the law.
So let's have a look at situations that push us into the ditch on the road of life.
The first one that comes to mind is a situation where you run into somebody that you know just well enough to strike up a conversation. Most of these types of conversation are simply superficial surface-scratchers that are an acknowledgement by both parties that the each person exists.
Neither person has any real impact in the other person's life, but they are fulfilling a very basic communication obligation to each other.
The death of one or the other would be a moment for pause at best, but definitely not enough to attend the dead acquaintance's funeral.
The end of a conversation between two virtual strangers typically ends with a "good to see you again" and a "goodbye", or a close relative of goodbye. Then the two strangers move onto the 99.9999% of their lives where neither matter to each other.
Until they run into each other five minutes later in aisle three of the grocery store where both were headed prior to their wafer-thin conversation. Cue the awkward moment. Nobody really prepares for these situations where a polite end to a shallow social gesture is rudely interrupted by another social encounter.
There are only a few solutions to this situation. A nod of acknowledgement and a nervous smile is the usual course of action- unless both people decide to ignore each other after the last conversation.
The easiest and most humane way to defuse the situation is to acknowledge each other with a "you again" or a "we got to stop meeting like this" opener. Then you can run into them in every aisle with no further conversational obligation or sense of awkwardness. Plus you no longer have to talk to them again until the next round of superficiality that may be a long time in the future if your luck holds.
Another awkward moment is the cliffhanger conversation. You find yourself in a social situation where you are cut off in mid-sentence by a person who starts a conversation (or is distracted) by somebody else. This is particularly awkward when other people witness this social traffic accident.
Maybe you are not to blame for the event, but you sure as hell know where you stand on the social ladder. And you won't have a fear of heights in this situation. The older you get, the less this tactlessness will matter to you. Because, on a good day, most people have half an ear on a conversation until something or somebody more interesting come along.
On an excellent day, some people are actually interesting. With age comes wisdom in this department, and most of us are too lazy to worry about being interesting as we get older and smarter. So we can understand why people move away abruptly from conversations, and we just don't care.
So there you have it: awkward life moments defused by apathy and experience.
Jim Sutherland @mystarcollectorcar.com
