One of the more interesting short stories I ever read was in a collection by Thomas Disch. It was about a future society where one needs a license in order to socialize with others. It chronicles this one man as he goes in for examinations to make small talk with an examiner to see if he is qualified for basic human interaction. As I have dip my toes into the real world of social interaction, I am beginning to realize how badly I would fail that examination. I can’t remember the last time I had a substantive conversation with someone I was not already good friends with. Every time I try to get some momentum building by asking a general question, there are a few sentences of dialogue followed by this lurching silence. I find this silence of awkwardness to be rather special in that no matter how loud, crowded or busy it is around you, the awkward silence, like Monty Python’s animated foot, crushes everything.
This was driven home for me in a major way at a party last weekend where I was chatting with two other people. The chat went on for over an hour over multiple topics and various grilled foods, it was funny energetic and interesting. Now, you may ask: “what is wrong with that? That sounds amazing.” It was amazing, mostly because I said maybe five words during that entire hour. It was the other two joking and being well adjusted human beings while I sat across and listened. When I did say something, trying to contribute to the fun stories and witty bon mots, I was met with five to ten seconds of dead air. The other two, being very gracious people gave a polite nod and a pained smile then promptly ignored me again, to the benefit of all involved. At the very end one of the interlocutors had to leave, thanked the other for the hot dogs and the good time. He then looked at me and said “Well Andrew, thanks for… uh, just… thanks”, before he headed out. I am pretty sure that is the conversational equivalent of the pity clap. The truly perverse aspect of this is that next week I will inflict my special brand of awkwardness on a bunch of new people that I will meet either at a bar, or at a baseball game or some other random place. The truly sad thing is that if one of them mentions that they are interested in anything nerdy, I am pretty sure we could talk for hours about the emotional complexities that comics books convey in the form of kicks to the face. I am not sure if this means I am going about this wrong or i need to stop being a nerd, but either way, I got to talk to someone long enough to figure out that they love kicks to the face as much as i do. And well, you know how that first part goes.
is it awkward to comment on a post depicting awkwardness in such a beautiful manner? many of us have been there. oddly enough, i stumbled across this doing a search for “awkard turtle” to show an acquaintance and liked your sketch. i’ll have to read the Thomas Disch collection. thanks for throwing that out to a stranger.
Hey, thanks for the compliment! I feel that I should mention however, the image is not mine. I found it, much like you did, through the power of Google search.