The agony of social contact

Pixabay

It was early on in our relationship, when I bumped into my partner, whilst out with my friends one evening; we were walking along on opposite sides of the street.

“Oh, look, there’s Bob*.” Someone said and we called out and waved.

*Not his real name.

He gave us a tentative wave but carried on walking, he didn’t cross over or stop for a chat.

“That was a bit weird, wasn’t it?” One of my friends remarked.

I agreed with her and have (jokingly) berated him about it ever since.

The thing is, although I’m somewhat quick to condemn others for these little displays of social awkwardness, I’m all too guilty of committing social faux pas myself.

The slightest little social interaction can have the potential to create massive internal turmoil. The uncertainty of how to conduct myself in certain social situations sometimes makes me wish I’d stayed at home. From how to introduce yourself to strangers (on those occasions when you have to - weddings, parties, work conferences), to how to progress from small talk to proper conversation; it all throws me into a bit of a tiz. And I’m far better than I used to be, in the past I might spend an entire evening barely speaking to anyone, nowadays, if I’m with people I feel comfortable with, I can be quite loud. It’s just that, every now and again, the old discomfort raises its ugly head.

Having children added an extra level of complication to the proceedings. You were encouraged, nay expected, to take them all these mother and baby groups, soft play centres (shudder) and baby signing classes. It is vital, you are told, that your baby gets a chance to socialise (and catch a myriad of colds and stomach bugs) with other children. But, arghh! To walk into a room full of complete strangers - a lot of whom seemed to know each other already and have formed impenetrable friendship groups, is a complete nightmare for the socially ill at ease! Not to mention the tight little huddles at the school gates and in coffee shops. How are you supposed to join these masonic societies if you have trouble striking up conversations with people?

I did the whole Netmums ‘meet-a-mum’ thing (Internet dating without the promise of sex and with far more talk of weaning and growth spurts) with variable success - but that’s a whole other blog post. I made a couple of chums. First time motherhood can be incredibly lonely so it’s important to try and socialise - probably more so for you than for your baby, who is content to laugh at trees and chew pebbles, but, oh, it’s not an easy business for the terminally shy.

Here are some ‘Top tips’ for social interactions/Conversational openers, I’ve picked up along the way, some more useful than others.

1. Work related conferences, meetings etc - The roof (ie the location) is what you have in common - “How did you get here?” “Do you live far away?” “Does your job promote feelings of deep, existential angst?”  Blah, blah, blah.
2. Mother and baby deals - “How old is your baby?” “What’s their name?” “Have you had one of those exploding nappy situations yet? Where the liquid poo seems to reach every corner of the baby gro?”

If you have an inexplicably sociable child, like my oldest, they might do the legwork for you by running up to people and initiating a conversation, drawing you into some awkward verbal shuffling with another parent.

The thing about trying to overcome your introvert tendencies is that you often misjudge a situation, overcompensate by babbling, over sharing* or saying something inappropriate.

*E.g telling another mother in the park that you’d tried to get your children to behave by threatening to decapitate their favourite toys.

It also doesn’t help if you have a bitchy resting face. https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=978691151524409415#editor/target=post;postID=1619915649323573241;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=44;src=postname

So why am I writing about this now? We-ll I saw this woman on the bus the other day who I vaguely know. We’ve spoken a few times and, as well as being one of the ‘mums’ from the school, she also now works for the same organisation as me (but in a vast place where we’ve never actually bumped into one another). It was a miserable rainy, day; some bus had broken down, the bus we were on was fairly rammed and I saw her as I went onto the upper deck.

“Hello!” I said, brightly (I think).

“Alright.” She said, in what I felt was a distinctly lukewarm, ‘don’t sit next to me’ tone of voice.

So I didn’t, sit next to her, that is. I went towards the back of the bus and read my book. But the thing is, she now blanks me, whenever I see her at school. I find that this bothers me greatly because I don’t want to be thought of as being rude…

A wise woman has suggested that I am focusing all my attention on this (relatively) insignificant problem to avoid thinking about the more important issues in my life, and she’s probably right. But until I can find some other misdemeanour to mistakenly channel all my internal angst into, this is one of the things which will continue to torment me at 3 o’clock in the morning!

Good old Pixabay again

In praise of praise

This is a bit of a companion piece to the one on banter; a kind of opposite-of-banter type thing.

I’ve got a bit of a crush on my daughter’s teacher. It’s O.K, my husband knows about it (I think, I might have told him when I'd imbibed, one night). It’s not a big deal - he thinks the teacher looks like Mr. Tumble.
I’ve discussed it with one of the other ‘Mums’, who feels the same as me, and we think it’s because he was nice about our children.  I sat at the parent consultation yesterday (the new name for parent’s evening), listening to him sing my daughter’s praises and idly wondering if he was wearing mascara (blue eyes, inky lashes - unusual combination, non?) and reflected on how nice it was to hear positive things. Whatever anyone says, it’s great to hear that your kid is doing well because it reflects well on you, as a parent. You feel that you must be doing something right. (Of course my child is her own person and not an extension of me or anything but I can claim a bit of credit, can’t I?)

I think that I said jokingly-but-not-really to the other mother that I wanted someone to tell me that I was doing really well.

At a child information talk a few years ago a health visitor told us that you can never praise children too much. ‘Give them lots of encouragement - they can never have too much praise.’ She said.

I sometimes wonder whether, when I was growing up, the adults had been given the opposite advice - ‘For god’s sake don’t praise her neat colouring-in skills; she might get above herself’.
Someone I once worked with colluded with this; that it was a ‘thing’ when she was a child to ensure that parents didn’t give their child a ‘big head’. Affirmation was in short supply. (She had a much better job than me though, so it can’t have held her back too much)

When my friend and I watched Fatal Attraction, as teenagers, we weren’t sufficiently distracted by the vigorous sex or bunny boiling, to notice the ‘wronged wife’ character telling her young daughter that she loved her.

‘I’m going to say that to my children, when I have them.’  My friend said.

I silently agreed, not that I intended having children, but that nobody said ‘I love you’. It was seen as being overly sentimental and ‘American’ somehow.

I’m not trying to shame my parents; it was clearly a generational thing. And it is something that I struggle with a little myself; expressing affection, I’m not the most effusive person (apart from when wine is involved but I do tell my children that I love them). But it was obviously something that my friend and I craved.

Ironic then that I’ve put myself in for something which involves almost constant rejection. It’s an almost weekly occurrence to get a knock-back from an agent or a publisher. It never feels any less painful - each time is like a medicine ball in the guts (I had to stop myself from typing cannon ball there).  But I keep going back for more.

Therapy has taught me that the more of a 'core sense of self-esteem' you have, the easier it is to withstand the ‘slings and arrows’ of life. But where does this core come from in the first place? Are you born with it? Or do you need to be told, in verbal and nonverbal ways (attachment theory: http://www.simplypsychology.org/attachment.html), that you are valuable, from the moment you are born?

People who didn’t get enough affirmation when they were kids seem to be the ones most in need of it as adults. But is it even possible to redress that balance in adulthood? What I’ve observed happening, in others as well as myself, is that however many nice things you say to someone with low self-esteem, it doesn’t seem to have a lasting effect. It needs constant repetition. Or, they fall into the Groucho Marks (via Woody Allen) trap of not wanting to belong to any club that would have them as a member. In other words, they think less of you for thinking highly of them.

(BTW if you are reading this and thinking - first world problems, whining privilege etc, then sod off, I mean, consider the positive effects on society of raising happy, well adjusted children.)

I seem to have veered here, from simple praise to affirmation to, well, love. Perhaps they are all manifestations of the same thing (all wrapped up in a fuzzy, pink ball!).

Confidence is not the same as arrogance, in fact the latter could be perceived as an extreme reaction/cover-up for low self esteem.

I think that, eventually, you can redress the balance, sometimes you need need to call in the professionals (in the form of therapy), but it can be done.

In the meantime, if you see your friend sporting a rather fetching looking new hat, or roller-skating in a particularly impressive way, tell them about it!

Banter

Henry Lloyd-Hughes: Wikipedia

I’ve been forced to reflect, recently on the nature of banter. What is it? Witty, Shakespearean repartee? Playful badinage? Verbal assault? When does it tip over into the last category?  

A simple cyber search throws up these as the top definitions of banter:

The playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks.

The Urban dictionary goes further: Supple term used to describe activities or chat that is playful, intelligent and original.

Playful and intelligent? Do we hear a lot of that? Don’t get me wrong; I’m fond of a bit of witty sparing myself, and it’s a bit of skill, seeing how far you can push it. But do some people push it too far?

I once had a friend who could be really good company, a lot of the time  - wickedly funny, quirky, interested in lots of different things. When I first got to know him, he was a real laugh to go down the pub with. But he could also be devastatingly cruel (more Frankie Boyle than Michael McIntyre). He was like a heat-seeking missile; identifying perceived physical flaws in others:

‘She needs to sort out her teeth!’

‘She should wear a bra that fits her properly.’

‘She’s got these little blue veins in her feet.’

(All different ‘shes’ by the way; not the same person. Interesting that all the insults are against women though...)

He was like Mr Bennet’s defintition of Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice; only looking at a woman (or a man) to see a flaw in them.

He was incredibly cutting. He once told a friend of mine that she would have noticed something, if she ever stopped talking! He told another mutual friend that the only woman they’d ever snag would be a mail-order bride.

He also had a real knack of finding your emotional Achilles heel and hacking it with a metaphorical axe.

‘Oh, that’s just him.’ People would say, heck, I would say. ‘You know what he’s like; he doesn’t mean anything by it.’

At a certain point, though, you had to wonder whether he did mean something by it and weigh up whether the laughs outweighed the insults or vice versa.

Ultimately the insults won out and this is someone I don’t see socially any more.

Does banter have its origins in playground insults? Sometimes it seems to be a main method of communication between men. Age doesn’t appear to be a barrier; even some older men seem incapable of greeting each other without a liberal sprinkling of insults. I get that in a culture of masculinity, where feelings have to be kept under wraps; it might be easier to slate one another, than to expose your vulnerable underbelly and say something like: ‘I’ve missed you.’ But when the insults get nasty and personal; criticising someone’s physical appearance; slagging off their partner and relations; is it a sign of insecurity?

When is a joke not a joke? “I’m only joking - where’s your sense of humour?” Call me a po-faced, humourless cow (I've been called far worse), but I don’t think there’s a lot of skill or originality involved in telling someone that they are losing their hair. But if you are not permitted to take offence at a personal remark, for fear of being accused of not having a sense of humour, then the verbal assailant has backed you into a corner. What can you do? Go down to their level and dismantle them; piece by piece. Or take the high ground, smile and turn the other cheek.

The thing is; I tell my children off for saying nasty, mean things to each other, so why should the so called grown-ups get away with it?

I'll leave the last words of this piece to my former friend; he'd seen them written on the wall of a public toilet and taken a photo of them: “Choose being kind, over being right.”

I wonder if he ever managed to take those words to heart.