Tag Archives: Conversation

Mutual Ignorance and the Face of Awkwardness

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‘Wait, I know that girl! I’ve got her on Facebook…I guess. Yes I do. But…. does she know me? Of course she does, she was the one adding me, not the other way around. But did she see me? No, she couldn’t. I’m standing here for only ten seconds or so. Hhm…what to do here? Shall I talk to her or not? Difficult, difficult. I know it! Let’s pretend that I didn’t see her and hopefully she will do the same. That would be awesome! Because then we could just go on with our lives and forget that this moment ever happened.’

I had a conversation with a couple of friends of mine in which we talked about the phenomenon called ‘mutual ignorance’. This phenomenon comes down to the following: you are standing somewhere, waiting for whatever to come (a train for example), while all of a sudden you see someone ‘you might have met once at a party or so’. Then the question that immediately comes to mind is: are you going to say hello? The conclusion we reached was the following: if you have had eye-contact with the person, there’s no way back. Then you have to engage in a conversation with the person. Otherwise it would be awkward. But what if you don’t want to engage in a conversation? What if you are feeling insecure about talking to the person? It will never go as smoothly as that time when you had a couple of drinks before talking to her. Or maybe you will tell yourself that you should really start studying in the train, so starting a conversation right now would be counter-productive. After all: a conversation cannot last a couple of minutes only, can it…?

But then, suddenly, you are hit by a striking observation: you are not the only party involved in this ‘strategic game’. What is the other person thinking? Is she a ‘normal’ person? If she is, she is likely to think the same as you: hence you can avoid each other. If not, she might feel bad about not having talked to you, and she will haunt you with this opportunity at a later point in time – at a club, for example.

It’s an instance of the famous Prisoner’s Dilemma: both of you are better off not talking to each other, but the outcome of the game depends on the action of the other person. But there’s a third player taking part in the game: mister awkwardness. He is sitting on the site laughing at you. He knows his time will come. The presence of mister awkwardness is inexplicable but oh so present. And he is nasty guy. Think about it: what was your most recent awkward experience? Did you fart in front of the professor entering the elevator? Well that’s awkward! But that’s nothing compared to watching porno and having your mum enter you room. On the awkwardness-scale, that’s definitely a 9.2.

So let’s make a deal people: let’s ignore each other, at all times. Let’s make sure that we never have to be on guard anymore; never taking out our binoculars in order to spot an approaching enemy anymore. Wouldn’t that be great?

You know what? Let’s just do it! “Mutual ignorance”, here we come.

But what do you think?

Why do People Enjoy Talking about Themselves So Much?

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Do you know those people who always seem to interrupt you when you are talking? Those people who always seem to find a way to make the conversation go about themselves? Or maybe you consider yourself to be just that kind of person? And if so, how does that make you feel? Personally, I get very uncomfortable around people using the word ‘I’ more than five times per minute. It makes me feel like I am attending a lecture instead of having a conversation. But do you know what bothers me even more? I am that kind of person.

Too much using of the word ‘I’ can be an indication of either of two things: (1) a lack of empathy or (2) a disproportionately large longing for validation. Let’s start with empathy. Any human being living in this world of ours has a need to socialize with its fellow species-members, whereby socializing consists of keeping an adequate balance between the giving and taking of thoughts. It is an endeavor that allows us to live together in the dense populations we have. However, whenever the balance between giving and taking gets distorted too much, we don’t consider ourselves to be engaged in a conversation anymore. By talking about ‘I’ too much, the conversation has stopped and the plea has begun. By talking about what ‘I’ believe too frequently, you implicitly take away the right of your conversation partner – or even his duty – to contribute to the conversation. And that is what we usually consider to be anti-social behavior.

The other reason for using the word ‘I’ too frequently is that you might have a disproportionately large need for receiving validation from your social environment. This need consists of a sense of ‘wanting to be listened to’ that is significantly larger than what people generally consider to be pleasant. The question is: why would someone do that? Why would someone keep talking about his own ideas while knowing that his interlocutor might not find this pleasant? Well, maybe it is because the person doesn’t understand yet or doesn’t understand why his behavior is considered to be anti-social. Maybe it is because he just started interacting with his species members and still needs to experience the nature of giving and taking which is present in a pleasant conversation. Or maybe the person knows all of the above but still doesn’t consider himself to be anti-social; maybe the person believes that we he says is right and that what the others say is wrong, and that this observation justifies him in talking about his ideas disproportionately much.

However, it often is very difficult to draw the line between what is a healthy contribution to a conversation and what is a narcissistic urge to express one’s ideas. The former is praiseworthy and can function therapeutically, constructively and even emphatically. Speaking is after all the best medium we have at our disposal for us human beings to make others aware of our beliefs. You could of course say that works of art and other human creations also have the capability to pass on their creator’s message. And although that might be true, social interaction in terms of the spoken word still seems to dominate each other medium in making your intentions clear to another human being. Face-to-face communication allows people to absorb the often subtle gestures, facial expressions and tonality that are required in order to truly understand the creator’s beliefs. And, as you might have experienced, passing on a well-intended written ironic statement is much more likely to be misinterpreted than the same message being spoken out loud. The subtleties present in human speech can make all the difference for interpreting a message in either the intended or unintended way.

But although it might be annoying, sometimes we just have to let the ‘I-talkers’ rush out and talk about themselves. Sometimes we just have to let them release the tension that is underlying the painfully unidirectional ‘conversation’ you appear to be engaged in. We might even learn something from it; that is at least what I hope your response will be after reading this self-centric plea of mine.

Therefore the right question to put all the above into perspective would be: what do you think?