Conversations

Life is stranger than fiction, right? Everyone has true stories where someone else says, “You just can’t make this stuff up.” The same applies to conversations. I once read a quote from a famous modern playwright who said he got his best lines while sitting on commuter trains, eavesdropping on the people around him. His example was something like this: Girl A to Girl B: “…and then he slid his hand under my skirt. You know, the blue one with the white ruffles.” Unless you’re Girl A, it’s hard to make this stuff up. Therefore, in order to develop my own dialog chops, I’m going to both turn up my hearing aids to eavesdrop on others people’s chats and also share a few notable real life conversations that still echo in my brain. At one point in my life my boss decided I should manage all our trade shows. Why me? Because I was standing in the hallway on the wrong day. The list of details to be managed for trade shows is staggering. Planning starts a year in advance. I won’t bother you with specifics but let’s just say I have a deep, personal appreciation for what SpaceX accomplished and how many reams of contracts are stored in its basement. After a number of trade shows, this same boss came to sit at the desk opposite mine in the concrete garage that was masquerading as office space. It was late in the day and only he and I were still working. Well, I was still working. I think he got bored and decided to pick a fight. He stared at me and told me I was no good at managing details. “Oh,” says I. “I’m sorry you feel that way. Can you tell me in what ways I’m not managing details well?” “You walk too slow.” “I walk too slow.” “Yes.” “When?” “When you walk down the hall.” “I see. Because I walk too slowly you think I am not good at managing detailed work.” “Yes.” “Hmmm. Well, since you think I’m not good at details, I”m surprised you picked me for the job.” “….blank stare….” “I imagine you’d prefer to assign someone else to the role.” “….blank stare….” “Someone who walks more briskly.” “…blank stare…” “Who do you have in mind to replace me and how quickly can I turn over the work?” “You should walk faster.” “I’ll keep that in mind, especially whenever I pass by your office door. Thank you.” That really happened. I didn’t make it up. And it’s true that for a few days I walked faster every time I passed his office. Sometimes conversations take place in different reality holes. The trick is to figure out which reality hole the other person inhabits at the moment. Here’s a perfect example of living in different reality holes vis-a-vis conversations. You’re sitting in a therapy circle. Someone sneezes and says “Excuse me.” The conversation leading from the right of this person, goes like this: “Allergies. I know just how you feel. The Chinese Elm trees are dripping pollen and I’ve been sneezing all day.” “You probably caught the same cold I did at our last meeting. You should rest a lot because this cold is a corker.” “I react the same way to the dust in here. It always makes me sneeze at the beginning of each session. You’d think they’d make more of an effort to sweep up after the other group leaves.” “I’m so sorry I wore this perfume. It makes my daughter sneeze every time I wear it. I’ll pick another fragrance next time.” “You’re sick. I think you should have stayed home. It’s not fair to expose us all in these close quarters. Either you leave or I will. What’s it going to be?” What caused the first person to sneeze? It could have been any one of the five reasons mentioned or something entirely different. We’ll never know. The point is, we only see the world through the filters of our own experiences. That’s why having conversations where two people are talking about the same thing is so difficult. There’s another phenomenon that interferes with effective conversations. Some people can get right to the point whereas other people have to walk around the block first. I fit into the latter category. It takes me approximately 2,000 words to get to the point. Several years ago I made a concerted effort to emulate my daughter and say what I wanted to say in as few words as possible. It was hard. It took a long internal dialogue before I could focus on the main point, but I succeeded. We were standing in line at a restaurant in Disneyland, one with medieval decor. I stared at the fabric swags hanging near the ceiling and proudly said to my son-in-law: “Gonfalons.” “What?” “Gonfalons.” He looked at his wife for help. She said, “What?” “Gonfalons. Nice gonfalons.” “I know you’re trying to be concise but you’re going to have to give us a few more words.” “The cloth banners draped from the crossbars.” I pointed to the wall. “They are gonfalons.” My children looked at the wall, then looked back at me. I’ve seen that look before. It’s the one where they’re starting to wonder if I’m slipping into dementia sooner than they expected. There’s nothing left for them to say at that point. I both initiated and ended the conversation in ten words or less. The ideal conversation takes place when all parties are in the same reality hole and everyone is willing to listen as well as talk. This takes some practice. In fact, a group of friends and I once attended a series of Wednesday night classes to learn how to have a conversation. Wednesday nights at Unity Church were supposed to be for bible study but the Minister of the Moment, the enlightened soul that drew us to his side regardless of our secular or religious leanings, had just come across a method of training people how to talk to one another. All but one of us fell in love with the concept and wanted to pursue it. The dissenter thought it was a horrible idea and hated every minute. The only reason she attended was to make certain no other woman stole her man with their fancy talking.

The first step in this particular system is learning to listen to what the other person just said. This is not easy. Typically, conversations go like this: “I just saw the best movie about Nelson Mandala. It really made a big impact on my world view.” “We watched the best movie last night. What was that movie? We had to stop in the middle because Tony spilled the popcorn all over the new sofa and I had to spray it with Shout to get the grease out. Oh, I remember! It was about a Mime who forgot how to talk. You’d love it.” This is a classic example of not listening. In order get better at it, our Minister would ask us to sit together in a moment of silence. At some point someone would be prompted to make an observation of some sort. As soon as he/she began speaking we all had to STOP THINKING ABOUT WHAT WE WANT TO SAY! THINK ABOUT WHAT WE ARE HEARING! I put this in caps to stress just how very difficult this process is to learn. However, if everyone listens, waits, thinks about what they just heard, and then waits some more, a miracle happens. Out of the silence, someone will feel prompted to reply. For example, John spontaneously says, “I helped my neighbor carry in her groceries yesterday. I didn’t want to but after I did it, I was even sorrier because she made me stay and eat cookies and listen about how rotten her grandchildren are.” Silence. We are all picturing sitting in someone’s cramped kitchen, eating stale cookies, wondering when we can politely make a run for it. Then we remember we’re supposed to be thinking about John so we pretend we’re him in the cramped kitchen, choking on stale biscuits. Eventually, someone is prompted to reply. “What do you think the lesson is in that story?” Jumping right in and yelling, “Next time you see her, turn around and run!” That is not the right answer. No. We’re supposed to think about the question of the lesson. Six people are sitting in a circle and six scenarios are playing in our heads. After a long period of silence, someone feels prompted to speak. “I suppose you could look at it from two perspectives. On the one hand, you could practice polite ways of saying no thank you and leave before she gets the chance to reach the cookie jar. On the other hand, you may have been the only person she’s had the chance to talk to all day, maybe all week. It wasn’t fun but maybe it was a greater act of kindness than helping with the grocery bags.” That leaves us all sitting in silence, wondering if we could bring ourselves to be that kind. Maybe we’re wondering what sort of a rotten person we are for never considering such a possibility. Then someone feels prompted to say something…. These were the best conversations I’ve ever had. Maybe. I can’t really remember anymore because nowadays any chat where I don’t end up telling the other person to never call me again is a good one. I can attest, however, that we really looked forward to Wednesday evenings until the Minister retired and moved to Canada to spend the rest of his life sitting by a lake, learning how to fish. We got a new Minister who thought Wednesday nights were for bible study. The first Wednesday night, she asked us what we’d been studying. We thought about her question for a long, silent time. The next Wednesday she had a whiteboard and black erasable pens on the ready, with chapter and verse written at the top. You see, she thought it was supposed to be a class about listening to her talk. We listened for an hour. Then we left and never went back. That is, all of us except the lady who hated our listening-based conversations. She was enthralled with the return to her form of normalcy, which was basically a comfortable, nonstop, two-way monologue. Bless her, she’s got a lot of company. The big takeaway for me from this class was that conversations are akin to music and art. The good bits are are made even better if they are surrounded by empty spaces.