When It Rains…

..it pours lemonade on your cargos. I found this out on Tuesday night while having dinner with my family celebrating my niece’s 12th birthday party.

That’s right, 12. Almost a teenager. That’s how fast time travels these days.
By the time you realise time has shifted, it’s already too late. Sad but true.

After the madness of last week’s essay-a-thon, I was next in line to give a presentation for my tutorial on Tuesday.
Admittedly, I didn’t go to the lengths I did for the essays in terms of preparation and research.

The reason for this is very simple. I’m pretty darn good at presentations and public speaking. Anyone who reads this from my high school days (the later ones at RDSC) will attest to this.

If there was one thing I’d noticed from all the previous presentations, there was a distinct lack of personality. I should probably accept this as par for the course in business studies, but what gives, kiddlywinks?! Yes, I’m aware you need to tell me about whatever bland topic it is you have been assigned, but how hard is it to make it entertaining?

My answer – not very. I made two jokes in my first three slides and had everyone listening intently for the duration of my presentation. The last presentation I had done, from memory, was in 2001. That’s 10 years. I feel very old all of a sudden.

I find it interesting when you bump into people that you haven’t seen in at least 5 years. Especially when you bump into them at the very place you met them.

Why do I find it interesting, you ask? Well, the start of the conversation is always pretty standard. “What are you doing here again?”, “What’s been happening?”, “Have you been well?” and you carry on this verbal exchange for the better part of 5 minutes. I’d be willing to put money on the fact that however many years it has been that you have seen someone determines the amount of minutes you can share a conversation – particularly true for acquaintances as opposed to friendships you developed.

Once you cover the basics, you’re kind of stuck for options in terms of what you can say next. In fact, when I was in this very situation, the person I was talking to asked the same question of me twice in a row. That’s about as greater signal as any that this particular conversation was reaching its end point. Rather than force the conversation to be extended and reach an awkward mess of a point, I digressed and gave the obligatory response as an out, “Well, I won’t hold you up any longer…” to which the person I was having the conversation with responded, “Yes. We are just about to do some things.”

…

I should have followed with, “I too have things that I am about to do at this time.”

Do you all know what phatic communication is? Basically, it’s small talk. Nothing is ever really said, but words are used. Are they wasted? No. This happened to me a few weeks ago on my way into work. A man was about to start painting the foyer (no, that’s not innuendo, I swear) when he shot me a look, a nod and a ‘How’s it goin?’ and I respond with “Not bad. You?”… “Yeah. Alright.” … “Have a good one.” Now, that all took place in less than 5 seconds. The only reason it took place was because we occupied the same space at the same time. Nothing was gained or communicated from this interaction, but it happened all the same. This is by no means a bad thing, by the way. I’m not trying to paint small talk as this bastardisation of communication. Far from it.

But what does it all mean, Basil?

Well, I’m glad you asked. What do you do in a situation where communication in any form is required, yet you find it incredibly difficult to actually express anything meaningful? I found myself in this situation late Wednesday night, when a woman I had been fond of some time ago contacted me completely out of the blue to inform me that she was interstate and that her mother was going through a health crisis. I had heard from her about two weeks earlier as well about the fact that she herself was going through her very own health crisis. Naturally, I did what any decent person would and called her to see how she was doing.

5 minutes was spent covering the essentials. The what, the where and the what’s next… And then 15 minutes was spent just talking about anything BUT the thing that actually needed to be talked about. The whole time I’m thinking, there are greater things at play here than what we’re talking about… Yet at the same time acknowledging the fact that sometimes people just need to be distracted by whatever means they can.

Small talk – nothing and everything at exactly the same time.

If you haven’t noticed by now, a lot of this entry is to do with communication. I think this is what is pacing through my mind at the moment because it seems like there is a distinct lack of communication in certain areas of my life, yet spewing out in soupy chunks in others.

Communication breakdown I always find troublesome. I think the only time it really screams to a halt with people you’re familiar with is when one or more of you stops being forthcoming or honest with information.

But then you have those times when things just click into place very nicely and it’s like Charlie Parker at the top of his game.

This has happened to me twice recently…

The other great thing about communication? Knowing exactly when to stop.