Posts by Isabel Hitchings
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Up Front: Absence in the Arcades, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
I just don’t have the emotional energy to worry about what people might think about why I’m there.
I'll be thinking "I hope Lucy has time for a drink"
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We went into Cashel Mall late on Saturday afternoon. Being there in the sunshine, surrounded by people didn't quite feel like coming home but it was the closest analogue I've had in a very, very long time. Walking in and feeling that surge of hope for my city reminded me how long it's been since I've felt much in the way of hope at all.
My younger son's class are spending a day a week, this term, in the botanic gardens and we will take them "into town" a time or two. One of the reasons we chose their school was because of its place in the city and reclaiming even a tiny part of that is really important. Standing in Cashel Mall and looking up at their school was very moving for my kids.
I feel like I've spent the time since February camping out in my own life. Everything is impermanent, in convenient and the novelty has long since worn off.
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**@Sofie Bribiesca small talk can definitely be a small, first step towards friendship but it is neither necessary nor sufficient for the process. There are people I have known for years with whom I have never progressed beyond small talk, and people I consider dear friends with whom it was all soul-baring at first meeting.
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Up Front: Casual, Shallow and Meaningless, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
I can socialise without making a complete fool of myself - or if I can't, no-one's been unkind enough to tell me - but the step from acquaintance to active socialising outside of obligatory contexts (work, university, clubs, etc)? Still a bit of a mystery. It's happened, but I couldn't tell you how.
That leap from friendly acquaintance to actual friend has a lot of magic and mystery to it. Like you, I have no idea how it happens, though it is a joy and a wonder when it does. What I do know is that small talk will not do it.
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Up Front: Casual, Shallow and Meaningless, in reply to Hebe,
Why thank you Emma; I could try to listen.
A couple of drinks next to Emma and you'll be over-sharing with the rest of us.
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Up Front: Casual, Shallow and Meaningless, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
The worse small talk starter ever (and one I use distastefully often) is "And what do you do?" How the hell do you answer that?
If you ask this of someone like me, for whom parenting is my primary occupation, you are going to come away with the perception that I can't talk about anything other than my kids because that is the only opening you've given me. Asking "what are you interested in?" is better.
I frequently get stuck in situations where people blithely assume I agree with them and it often takes quite a while until there is a conversational space where I can put them right by which stage saying what I really think is impossible without being horribly rude. I find this utterly perplexing as I never assume someone shares my opinion without fairly solid evidence.
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Up Front: Casual, Shallow and Meaningless, in reply to BenWilson,
Small talk is learnable. The only real question is: Can you be bothered?
For me the question isn't can I learn it? Or can I be bothered? (The answers are yes and sometimes respectively). The question is can I do it authentically? And a lot of chit chat involves not telling people what I really think in order to keep things 'nice' and that is very, very wearing.
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Up Front: Casual, Shallow and Meaningless, in reply to Emma Hart,
Also, I find it really hard dealing with people who can only talk about their kids, and I have enough purely-functional conversations about my own.
I enjoy talking about my kids in the sense that I find child development really interesting and they are my main case-studies. This is not the conversation that most people who want to talk about their kids want to have. I have come close to gnawing my limbs off to avoid the competitive brag-fests about whose little darling is the bestest.
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Oh I hear you! I cannot count the number of times I've said something I thought was a normal thing to say only to have the room descend into awkward silence.
Some of the difficulty is that my humour is too dry, too specialised or too rude for many settings so I find myself stuck with the topics about which I can be terribly, terribly earnest. I don't like me when I'm terribly, terribly earnest.
Once, a very nice woman kindly asked me if my daughter read the Color Fairies books like all the other daughters, and I got to say no, actually, she prefers Captain Underpants. We never saw those people again.
This encounter resonates so strongly with me. By virtue of the mysterious process of certain character traits breeding true I am raising somewhat non-conformist children and I find this is often the ultimate conversation stopper. The other mothers will be sighing "boys, huh?" at some purportedly masculine trait that my boys have never displayed and venturing to point out that fact invariably makes the silence descend some more.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Jackie Clark,
To which the inevitable response is either an eyebrow lift (that would be assent) or “I’m just holding my penis”.
When one of my sons was very small I made the mistake of asking him why he had his hand down his nappy. He sighed, gave me the kind of look reserved for the terminally dim and said "I'm penising".