I grew up in Canada. In the land of polar bears they have health care for all. I don't want to argue whether or not the level of health care offered in Canada is superior or inferior to that which is offered in the Unites States. What I do want argue is the volume at which that service is offered.
When I used to go to sleep in my igloo at bedtime I would leave the television on to help lull me to sleep. After eleven o'clock at night there is nothing good on T.V. I'd just set the channel to the first talk show I could find and let it drone on in the background. The commercials that would come on were for various food and drink products. Every so often a semi pornographic phone sex ad was spliced in but those always had soft saxophone music that did little to interrupt a determined sleeper.
At this point I need to disclose something. I have panic attacks. Many people who don't know what panic attacks are think that they are instances in your life where you worry, stress or panic about things. Real panic attacks however are nothing like you feeling anxious about your new job or failing a math test. Often panic attacks are unexplained and happen spontaneously. Imagine yourself reading a book sitting out in the sun. Suddenly every muscle in your body tenses up, your heart rate ramps up to about 180 beats per minute, you start having chest pains, you can't breathe and you think in about 3 seconds you are going to die from a heart attack. This can happen up to and including 50 times a day and each time you sincerely believe that you are dying. The attack can last for minutes or hours, the length is all decided by your own crazy mind. As you can imagine, having no control over when attacks strike and seemingly no reason why they do it can be a source of great tension and anxiety in ones life.
Why do I bring this up you ask? While living in the U.S. I've tried to use the same method of leaving the television on for background noise while I try to sleep. The one major difference? health care is big business in the United States. It all began with anti depressant and mood stabilizer ads. Abilify, Cymbalta, Pristiq Effexor, all of them were the same. They would fade in with some down tempo music describing the symptoms of depression. They would then go on to tell you how their product would solve your depression. That was about the first 30 seconds. What followed next was a minute and a half of them disclosing warnings and side effects, chief among them "An increase in your depression, thoughts of suicide, diarrhea and death. I don't know about you but someone who is grappling with anxiety doesn't need to be repeatedly injected with thoughts of diarrhea induced death.
What would naturally follow these commercials were the ones about class action lawsuits. "Have you recently had a heart attack? Do you know someone who has? Do you know someone who is thinking about having a heart attack? Have you ever seen the twisted purple corpse of someone who has died from a heart attack? Are you thinking about that image? Is it scaring you? Are you starting to panic? Are you breathing into a paper bag and hyperventilating? If so, call the law offices of Dewey, Rapem and Howe today!
Follow this with commericals from Dr Oz's next show "Do you have skin? Find out about a very common disease found on all door knobs that will probably kill you." How the hell am I supposed to sleep through that? At what point can we start pointing fingers and label this shit hysteria for ratings? Isn't there something in the Hippocratic oath that says not to do unnecessary damage? Just because psychology is a soft science does not mean that I need to be paranoid about dying every moment of my life.
I guess I could just turn the television off, but then it would be so dark and quiet.
What are the rules of engagement when it comes to small talk? Is there an art to it, or does it just happen for some people as part of the natural flow of their lives? I've never been good at small talk. I fancy myself a good talker but I despise redundancy or being perceived as boring. Yet, even when I let go of the notion that am being both redundant and boring I still am unable to have a successful, short conversation that isn't rife with anxiety and awkward pauses. This anxiety manifests itself in fast talking, sweatiness and an over expressive flailing of my limbs.
Allow me to use a real life example and then we'll break down the game tape. I was walking the dog and as I was going to cross the street I saw a lady walk out of a nearby building. I was at least 100 feet away from her, well beyond the threshold of having to politely acknowledge someone else's existence. Regardless, she was looking hard at the dog and bellowed:
Her: Is that a pug?
Me: (in my head) no it's a Great Dane.
Me: (out loud) it sure is.
Her: (still from a distance) It's cute.
Me: (realizing I have to close the gap to be polite, I start walking over) Yeah, they're so ugly that they're cute.
At this point I've walked over to talk to her and she tells me that her friend has two pugs and blah, blah, canine diabetes, blah blah, early blindness, blah blah 3 legged blind pug. And I'm there with her, I'm mixing it up, throwing counter punches of faux interest and inserting appropriate giggles at punchlines and serious eyes of recognition for the serious parts. I start to notice that she keeps cutting me off and not listening to my very short bursts between her long digressions. I limit my interruptions to knowing nods and let her continue.
About 4 minutes into the conversation she stops her blather sharply in mid sentence and says "Well, I've got to get going." She said this in such a way that implied that I was keeping her. I thought by the way she went on and on (and on!) that she was making time before her ride arrived. But no, she was driving herself and yet she stood around for several minutes talking to me, who clearly had no desire to talk to her in the first place.
I'm not upset that this lady talked to me, I just couldn't figure out her motive. I began to obsess about our conversation. Was I less engaging then she had hoped, is that why she put a premature end to our conversation? Maybe she wanted me to pick the dog up so that she could cradle it in her arms and whisper sweet nothings to it. I gave her several outs early on for her to easily exit from the conversation yet she chose to keep on talking. Perhaps she is terrible at small talk as well and needs to work at her concluding skills.
That really is the main problem with small talk, when does it end? What if I pulled up beside the lady at a stoplight or met up with her later at Starbucks? Am I required by social contract to wave and/or give her a few more lines of conversation? I couldn't blatantly ignore her could I? I think there needs to be a code word used in every conversation that states your intention. I need to know if I am supposed to develop a thought or just rattle off a few quick lines of wit. There is nothing worse than trying to cram your whole life story into 30 seconds or to extend the ingredients of a chocolate bar into a 15 minute speech because you've misread the desired length of the conversation. "Uh, yeah, that Snickers has got, uh...nuts and nougat. You know what I like about Snickers? it has caramel. I just love things with caramel, they are the caramelliest."
What's in a name, not that much. For a moment think about all the people you know with the same name as you. Whether they are famous or not, they rarely have similar traits, or look anything like you. The importance of your name then really is self imposed (or parent imposed) Often people change their names or use their middle names because their mother did such a poor job of aptly describing what came out of her Who-Ha.
My real first name is Justin. I share it with the likes of Bieber, Timberlake and Guarini. I don't know how I ultimately feel about my name being Justin. I find it strange to introduce myself and use my full name. Perhaps we all feel a little weird like we are having an out of body experience when we introduce ourselves. I've noticed that my family have devised short forms to call me "Justy" in the case of my mother, "Just" in the case of my brother. I get the impression that the formal version of Justin doesn't quite suit me.
Where am I going with this? an anecdote of course!
I used to work at warehouse that sold school textbooks. My job was in the office part of the warehouse. It was my task to look busy while I typed to my friends on ICQ. If you don't know what ICQ is, it reveals how old this story is. This lady named Susan used to work the morning shift and occasionally I would see her in passing as I arrived to work afternoons. She was about 40 and a little weathered by time but very friendly. When we first met our conversation went something like this:
Me:Hello!
Her: Hello to you.
Me: Hi my name is Justin, I work here.
Her: Hello my name is Susan, I also work here.
*blank stares*
Her: Well Jason, it was nice meeting you.
Me: Actually, that's Justin, nice to have met you too.
Her: Oops sorry, okay, see you later Justin.
A few days passed and I saw her again:
Her: Hey Jason, how ya doin'
Me: *pauses* uh...I'm doing well, how bout you?
Her: I'm great Jason, I had a great weekend partying.
Me: Cool.
Her: Yeah Jason, you should really get out to____(wherever) it's really quite nice.
Me: I just might if I can ever get off work.
Us: Generic work sucks commentary.
Her: Okay, well see you around Jason.
Me: *GULP* okay, see you around.
For the next couple of weeks I kept running into her and every time she called me Jason. The embarrassment of this situation was heightened by the fact that my brothers name is JASON! What could I do? She had been calling me Jason for two weeks, my name was officially Jason. If I corrected her I would seem like a big ass but more importantly I would have had to face the question "Why didn't you tell me that you name was Justin?"
For the next little while I did what any sensible person would do, I avoided her. I would arrive to work late and make excuses to be in spots other than my office. I was not above diving into an aisle of books or dipping into the break room. But like some moment out of a sitcom she would emerge from the shadows and exclaim "Hello Jason!"
I couldn't take it any longer. I decided to confide in my boss (who was cool) the dark secret that I had been harboring.
Me: I've got a problem
Him: What's that?
Me: Susan keeps calling me Jason.
Him: Why don't you correct her.
Me: I did, but now the grace period of adjusting your brain to learning someone's name has passed. To correct her would be awkward and insulting.
Him: It's not that big a deal.
Me: I know, is there any possible way you can give her the hint that my name is Justin.
Him: Sure buddy, I'll help you out.
The next day me and the boss are hanging out and Susan walks in:
Boss: Hey Susan
Her: Hello.
Boss: Justin tells me that you keep calling him Jason, his name is Justin.
Me *sheet white*
Her: Oops, okay, sorry Justin.
Her: Why didn't you tell me Justin?
At this point I swear she gave me the stink eye but I was too frozen with fear and boggled with confusion that I can't clearly remember. Obviously my boss had missed the emphasis I had put on the word "hint" and the words PLEASE DO IT WHEN I"M NOT THERE TO FACE THE EMBARRASSMENT, SHAME AND SCORN OF THE MOMENT.
After that day Susan rarely ever talked to me again. Sure we spoke every once in a while but it was more soulless and empty then our previous conversations. It was as if we lost something. Perhaps she liked Jason better.
Situation: I was sitting idly watching television and not reading or doing anything productive. For the record what I was watching wasn't educational in any way. I was simply wasting my life, moment by moment in front of the television. Suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping on my chamber door. Naturally, I was frozen with fear. Who could it be knocking on my door? Was it the police, would I become the victim of mistaken identity and be arrested and taken to jail? Was it my landlord? did she finally have a verdict on what she thought about the illegal pets that I have been harboring in my apartment? Worse, could it be someone that I know personally who just thought that it would be "fun" to pop by? Whatever the situation, it needed an answer. But I admit, on this occasion my panic got the best of me and I hid in the comfort of the bathroom and waited for the pounding on my door to cease.
Once it finally did, I mustered up the courage to see if the perpetrator left any evidence behind. Holding my breath I slowly walked to the front door and grabbed hold of the handle. Unlocking the door, I quickly pulled it opened and timidly poked my head outside. On my doorstep there rested a package from UPS. It seemed that the evil caller that had come to ruin my life was in fact a good doer, come to shower me with gifts.
It was at this point I got to thinking "What the hell is wrong with me?" I have yet in my life to be stabbed or held at gunpoint. At worst as I mentioned I've had to deal with the landlord in a few sticky situations where I've had to lubricate the truth. Other than that, my life is fairly tame. So why then do I dash into the comfort of the bathroom or closet when someone knocks on the door or calls on the phone? Simply put, I'm a little crazy.
I believe however that my form of crazy is justifiable. You see even though my interactions with humans are fairly pedestrian and not conventionally scary, they aren't good either. Every phone conversation I've ever had is someone trying to get me to help them work through a computer problem. If not that then they are requesting that I drive 40 miles and jump start their car or fix a flat. If not that then I am timidly trying to arrange a job interview over the phone whereby I have to disguise my lack of experience in the field and pretend that my references are real.
