Small Talk Is Vampiric

      I think I'm personable.  I think I get along well with others.  I outwardly accept most situations, even though sometimes someone throws a serious curveball and I'm ill prepared to mask my surprise.  Most of this may seem intangible so I'm prepared to back it up with examples.  But before the example backup, ask yourself how well you roll with the punches.  I guess it's not necessarily even punches I'm talking about, because that implies a hardship, and even though that's a portion of what I'm talking about, it's more frequent.  Ask yourself how well you can make someone feel that you relate to them.  How well do you put people at ease, allowing them to feel safe enough to give you a glimpse into their twisted lives?  I feel that I have, in some scope, refined an ability to do this.  It sounds sociopathic.  It sounds like social engineering or psy ops.  I suppose it is on its most basic level.  It's social guerrilla warfare, a manipulation of perception swayed in your favor to gain an insight not just anyone can gain.

     As a general rule, I'm not a "small talk" kind of person.  It's awkward and irrelevant.  Small talk is, at best, a disengenuous act of feigning compassion about someone else's concerns.  I'm more of a "say what you need and then let's shut the hell up" kind of person.  This may sound a bit harsh, and maybe I don't mean it quite as harsh as it seems to sound.  Basically, I want my conversations to stay relevant.  I have been known to tell people that I think their story is too long.  I can fake interest in brief sections of time.  But when someone's story drags on and on, I get antsy.  Gotta keep moving.  I liken it to someone telling me what they dreamed.  This is so irrelevant, it makes me want to cry vomit.  Yes, cry vomit, since it's so sad and nauseating at the same time.  What happened in your dream is pointless and holds no bearing on real life(I'll not get into a debate about psychic phenomena or future predictions from dreams, here).  Often, when someone is explaining their dream, it is an ill-constructed, plotless, weird recount of events that have no structure or climactic payoff.  They all end with "then I woke up."  There is no character development, and no plot line resolution.  Its a waste of time.  The only format in which dream recitation is acceptable to me is in two to three sentence explanations.  "I dreamt that you had a goats head, then we hunted you and ate you for dinner.  Pretty weird, huh?"  Quick, to the point, and a breath of fresh air.  So, I'm getting off the dream stump now, and back to what I'm trying to convey.

     Since I get bored with small talk and everyone seems to want to do it, I have no choice but to engage in it so I can fit under the societal umbrella of normal.  So I often play a game.  I roll with what people tell me.  I feign interest.  I ask follow up questions and I listen way more than I talk.  If you ever get a chance to watch two people engage in small talk, I recommend that you look at it through this prism:  Every intention that the two people have during the interaction is to twist the conversation into something meaningful and relevant to them.  It's a struggle for floor time, a struggle for each of them to keep the conversation about themselves, to gain control of the spotlight.  If I get stuck in a small talk situation(which is not that often, since I'm easily put off by it), I allow it to be about the other person.  I don't grapple for the focus.  It's interesting to me because it makes people really feel that I care.  But it's also exhausting because I am loading up on someone else's emotional baggage.  If I could come up with a way best to explain it, I would call it "emotional energy transference."  I am letting someone use me to unload their emotional energy and so I absorb it, making them feel better and me feel like I now have their emotional weight.  These people are energy vampires, off-loading their negative energy and corrupting my positive energy.  That's why I don't like to engage in it.  It's exhausting. 

     You'll find that when you don't wrestle for the focus in conversations, people will tell you way more than you expect to hear.  And also, your reaction will alert them as to wether they feel safe to continue or if they feel that they've said too much and back off.  I always try to handle whatever people tell me as normal and not too far off the beaten path, even when it is way outside the grid.  "Oh, you killed your girlfriend last night?  Hmmm.  Sounds reasonable.  How'd you do it?"  This makes them feel safe and they will continue, knowing now, that you are not judging and are sympathetic to their point of view.  

     So, I'm obviously and constantly thinking inwardly.  Outwardly, I accept what people tell me.  Inwardly, I'm thinking crazy thoughts about this killer I'm talking to and how I hope they don't kill me, and how can I get out of this conversation without getting kilt.  (Decided to use the vernacular of "killed."  I don't know, maybe now I'm getting bored with my own story)...

     So anyway, I guess this post is about holding a reaction to get more insight because it makes people feel more comfortable.  And I guess it's about how if I can avoid it, I will, but also, if I can't avoid it, I try to seem genuinely interested to build that trust to see how much I can get out of them.  Mostly it's about how bat-shit crazy my mind is, and how long conversations suck the life out of me.

5 Life Lessons In 36 Years

Here's a list of lessons that took 36 years for me to learn.  While I understand that just reading this list is no substitute for actual experience, hopefully it can allow one to arrive to the conclusions a little more expediently than it took me.   

1.  People are selfish.  Big deal, you knew that already, right?  People want to feel important.  People's worlds revolve around themselves.  Obvious lesson, right?  I think I knew that early on, but maybe not quite to the extent that it realistically is.  There are subconscious subtleties to this lesson that I never considered or even fathomed.  It starts at one's desire to hear their own name to wanting money, fame, etc.  We, even me, want it all.  Everything.  It's a deeply rooted, base feeling inside us all.  It's the human condition and can lead to pretty substantial problems.  A surface word for it is greed.  But it's more than that.  It's a subconscious fear of inferiority.  None of us are confident.  We hide it through arrogance and vanity.  But it's there.  

     The lesson, I guess, wasn't that people are selfish.  As I said, I knew that early on.  The real lesson was how to deal with this fact.  It was the 36 year long struggle with how to interact with people in a world of selfishness that was the eye opener.  So here's the secret,if you haven't figured it out yet in your own journey through this tangled world:  Play into it.  Very simple.  Use people's names.  Ask questions from the perspective of what's important to them.  Remember details.  Stop talking and listen.  Do this, and your desire to feel important will be fulfilled, because you'll find that people suddenly want to be around you.  You'll become likable.  Funny how that works.  

     As a manager, I've hired many people.  More applicants than you might realize speak in terms of what they want.  Instant interview killer.  Without being too insensitive, here, I just don't care what they want.  I'm interviewing people to find qualities in someone that I want.  

   

   "So, Mr. So-and-so, why do you want to work for our company?"  

    "Well, I'm ready for a change of pace.  I need to make a higher salary.  I wanted better hours than my previous job and I just had a baby so I need the benefits...."  Blah blah blah.  How about speaking in terms of what the employer might want?

     "I feel that I might be a good fit for your company because I have experience doing x,y,z.  Also I'm really impressed with the operation of your company.  (A little ego stroke). I feel that I can add value to your organization because blah blah blah."  Speak in terms of what other people want.  You will instantaneously become a desirable person to be around and a breath of fresh air to the selfish monotony of other people.  Not just in interviews--that was just an example--but in life.  Talk less, listen more.  And when you do talk, speak in terms of the other person's desires instead of your own.

2.  Nothing is free.  There is a cost to all things.  If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is, and if there is a truer cliche, I don't know it.  We all wish for free things, but there is no substitute for working hard to get it.  Working hard for things adds value to the thing you got and builds confidence when you succeed.  It's not our fault that we feel like sometimes we should catch a break on something.  We are indoctrinated.  As kids, most of us lived with parents who provided for us and for a long time, things truly did seem "free."  It wasn't.  Our parents worked for the "freebies" we enjoyed.  We know that now, as adults, but we still don't fully consider it.  I see it with my kids, too.  We want to provide the very best for them and we do, but there will come a time when we unleash the real world on them and the realization that nothing is free will come to them.  Despite this realization, we desperately want the free ride.  We want a taste of that innocence again, the worry-free attitude of the hand out.  It's a natural feeling but understand that it's gone and it will not come back.  

     There has been a lot of debate recently about government filling that cavity of emptiness we all have.  And it is a tempting notion.  But remember, nothing is free.  Whatever it is, must be paid for by someone, somewhere.

3.  Everyone has skeletons in their closet.  We have all done some things we are not proud of.  We have all made mistakes and have had to live either with the guilt of not getting caught or the consequences of what we did.  We all have embarrassing moments.  We all have memories of something that happened to us that still makes us cringe with regret.  We have all lied about something at some point, and we all have all of that hanging over our heads at all times and the stress of it has made us into who we are presenting to the public today.  Baggage.  Emotional baggage.  I have a theory about this.  In life, we start out with no property, no emotional baggage.  As we age, we accumulate a bag, a small one.  Eventually that bag turns into a suitcase and later still, that suitcase turns into a forty piece luggage set that you carry with you everywhere.  We cannot let go of our past mistakes.  We will carry that baggage with us everywhere until our death.  That's not my theory, though.  My theory is this:  If you get married young, the other person will have less emotional baggage for you to have to deal with.  The older you get, the more emotional baggage and the less likely you'll be to get past it all.  Like going on vacation, it's a lot easier to travel with two bags than it is with three. You see where I'm going here.  The theory is only a theory so unbunch those panties!  It's simply an idea I've had about people and relationships for a while and there's no way to prove its accuracy.  There's WAY too many variables for a controlled experiment to occur.  But know this simple lesson.  Everyone is dealing with a personal past and it shapes who we are today.  It is the reason that someone has trust issues.  It is the reason someone adjusts the rear view mirror every time they get behind the wheel and it's the reason someone is doesn't take no for an answer.  It is trivial, and it is gigantic.  It doesn't matter how small or big, it is the reason we are who we are.

4.  Do things you don't want to do.  Obviously, I'm not talking about killing someone or anything even remotely harmful or illegal.  All I'm saying is to get out of your comfort zone from time to time.  I don't know many people that like doing things that they're not already comfortable with.  It is awkward, uncomfortable, humiliating, maybe.  You cannot do something confidently until you've had practice at it, or at least have done it a couple of times.   We don't like feeling unsure.  I get it.  We don't like that we might look foolish.  But really, who cares all that much if you look foolish?  Just you, that's who.  I made a decision a while back to just charge in and try it.  If there's something I haven't done before, I refuse to go in meekly or timidly.  I will either surprise myself and do whatever it is well, or I will fail miserably and look like the biggest fool ever.  And I have decided to be okay with the latter.  I'm already dragging a few tons of emotional baggage around anyway, load me up.  I have found, and I guess here's the real lesson behind the scene, is that when I charge into things head on like that, and even when I aggressively fail, my emotional baggage stays the same size.  It's a mental preemptive choice, to accept that I might fail, and that if I do, to take it in stride.  

5.  Be honest, and give bad news.  No one I know enjoys having to give bad news.  In fact, most people try to dodge it at all costs.  It's difficult to do and emotionally painful, but do it anyways.  Most people will be surprised by your honesty.  Don't mistake what I'm trying to say though.  Don't seek out bad news just so you can inflict an emotional breakdown on someone.  That is ethically defunct, and mean for no good reason.  But if you must give someone bad news, don't avoid it.  On top of that, it has been my experience that the sooner the bad news is delivered, the easier it is.  In counterpoint, the longer you avoid it, the harder it becomes.  Get it out of the way so it's not sitting heavily on your shoulders for any length of time and so that whoever is going to receive the bad news can begin to accept whatever it is and move on from it.  

     I have witnessed a lot of people pass the buck when it comes to bad news.  The buck stops here!  People appreciate the honesty in most cases.  And even when they aren't gracious enough to not take it out on the messenger, well at least you're not carrying that burden around any longer.  In all cases, it is necessary to deliver the news with a certain level of tact.  I fear a misinterpretation on this one.

     Five steps to major life lessons in 36 years of life.  I'm not perfect by any stretch, and often it is a struggle to remember even simple lessons I've learned in life.  For some, I'm doomed to repeat for a long time to come.  For others, I have them mastered.  We make mistakes to learn, but when the mistakes get made, we also have to be in the right frame of mind to receive it as a lesson, and that may be the most difficult lesson of all.