There was an abattoir in the lane behind the house where I grew up. We local kids were convinced that one of the men who worked there—who looked uncannily like Vincent Price and hauled carcasses to waiting vans—would kill us and bury us out back. We called him “the man who’ll put you in the black hole.” Whenever he stepped onto the street, splattered head-to-toe in blood, we’d scatter in all directions, screaming.
Which, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that in the company of strangers, say, in a waiting room or a lift, I simply cannot endure awkward silence. I feel compelled to break it with some clever quip or bon mot. It’s not that I keep a repertoire of witty lines; it’s just that discomfort makes me blurt the first thing that pops into my mind which, naturally, is always witty.
No doubt you’ll recall my post about the visit to the vet when I walked into a packed, silent waiting room carrying my chicken in a cardboard box. Heads lifted from screens, curious. I swept into the centre of the room and announced, “Ladies, gentlemen, and those as yet undecided, may I present my wry-neck chicken,” after which I bowed theatrically and took a seat. Someone clapped making everyone laugh and soon people were chatting. The vet even knocked €50 off the bill...presumably for my services as impromptu entertainer.
Now that’s what I call a day out.
These days, though, my sparkling repartee often falls on deaf ears, as everyone is permanently plugged into some noise-spewing device. My brilliance, wasted on the wilfully distracted. Still, I persist. I’d rather talk to myself than agonise in the silence.
However, should you feel tempted to try my ice-breaking techniques, dear reader, do be warned, one-to-one situations are another matter entirely. Sit me beside a stranger on a bus or a plane and I will do everything humanly possible to avoid conversation. I mean, there’s no escape if they turn out to be a bore, and let’s be honest, most are. In that scenario, silence is infinitely preferable to hours of twaddle about football or reality TV.
And so, for the intellectually vulnerable among you, I have devised a helpful mnemonic to remember my methods:
In a crowd, make it loud. One-to-one, keep shtum.
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Posted in response to galenkp's weekend experience
prompt asking: Awkward silence, or talking too much...do you do one or the other and weirdest thing you believed was true when you were a child?
The images are random, taken on Dublin streets, and do not necessarily reflect my opinions.
