I am a socially awkward person. If you know me you are probably cocking an eyebrow and wondering how this could possibly be some kind of new revelation. Yes, you all already know. But my conversational difficulties result from an overly analytical mind with a nihilistic bent. My awkwardness was driven home to me two days ago at work as I waited for the unaccountably slow freight elevator with another female associate who works as an aquarist in a different part of the aquarium. (As an aside….was that sentence of legal length? I don’t have Elaine here so we are flying solo without a proof reader………….please assume crash positions.) At any rate we’ll just keep moving along with the story, run-on or no. So I was waiting at this elevator and the minutes just start ticking by. We are both standing there avoiding eye contact, pretending the floor has an interesting tile mosaic rather than mere stained concrete and I realize I can’t think of a thing to say. Well to be fair I could think of something to say, a single line of completely obvious banality. “Man, this elevator is slow.” But it’s a conversational dead end isn’t it? I mean what is there to respond with other than “yes, yes it is a slow elevator.” If she was unusually chatty the best it could evolve into is a discussion about various elevators we’ve ridden and their relative speeds and let’s be frank, does anyone really want to have that conversation? Elevators are poor story material. I heard an elevator story from a camp speaker back in high school that was funny but that was because it involved a little bit of unintentional public nudity and a little bit of that can make any story a bit funnier. I don’t have a single memorable elevator story but I have a fair repertoire of situational nudity stories. * And furthermore what would be the ultimate point of said elevator conversation. Now most of you are probably thinking “well forget the elevator, you both work at the aquarium you could talk about that.” Here’s the thing though, yes the elevator is long but it will arrive within five minutes and we will arrive at our destinations a mere three minutes after boarding. The ground we could cover in the time allowed would be so minimal I just couldn’t see the point. Lets, just for kicks, play out a conversational scenario. The portion in red contains actual words spoken.
Jeff: “So do you work with the marine mammals?”
Girl: “Oh yeah I do. Are you with fish?”
J: “Yeah I am an intern over at the tropical wing.”
G: “Oh that’s cool. Do you like it?”
J: “Yeah I do my names Jeff by the way.”
G: “I’m (insert name here). Good to meet you.”
G: “Yeah, I know its only one floor but the stairs get tiring after having run them all day.”
J: “Yeah, it’ll do that.”
G: “See you later.”
J: “Have a good day.”
Now wasn’t that just deliciously worthless? I myself would go for the short awkward bit of silence which is exactly what I did. If we were both at a party and I had time, I might go for the chat just to pass the time.
* This story contains a significant portion of my bridal party, the groom’s dinner, a brunt out headlight, and a police officer.
Jeff: “So do you work with the marine mammals?”
Girl: “Oh yeah I do. Are you with fish?”
J: “Yeah I am an intern over at the tropical wing.”
G: “Oh that’s cool. Do you like it?”
J: “Yeah I do my names Jeff by the way.”
G: “I’m (insert name here). Good to meet you.”
G: “Yeah, I know its only one floor but the stairs get tiring after having run them all day.”
J: “Yeah, it’ll do that.”
G: “See you later.”
J: “Have a good day.”
Now wasn’t that just deliciously worthless? I myself would go for the short awkward bit of silence which is exactly what I did. If we were both at a party and I had time, I might go for the chat just to pass the time.
* This story contains a significant portion of my bridal party, the groom’s dinner, a brunt out headlight, and a police officer.
and if anyone can correctly identify the picture they get a cookie.......(Daniel Webster I am so sorry, I know not what I do.)
