Cultural Spelunking

I am quickly losing my ability to chat, make small talk, shoot the breeze, chew the fat, and all the like. When confronted with strangers, in the awkward moment when you both are made aware of each others presence and shared usage of any space, that crucially defining moment as to how your relationship with this stranger will take shape, pregnant with self-consciousness, I almost always choose to let deafening silence prevail. That moment is when you either will chat with this person or won’t. Either will discuss things obvious to both of your immediate situations, then eventually each others personal experiences, or you will both awkwardly act as though the other one ISN’T right there, waiting for to board/for your number to be called/the elevator to come. Once this moment happens, you are pretty much stuck down whichever path you took and it will be even more hugely awkward to either stop chatting if you have started or start talking if you let it sit too long. 

 I can’t help but feel that this graceless gablessness is defining characteristic of our generation. I almost feel like if my grandpa (who could strike up a more meaningful conversation with a brick wall than I can even manage with some of my classmates who I see every other day) witnessed this insular little ipod cocooned life I live he would be disappointed in me. What I am good at, however, is thinking intensely about how I would phrase what’s going on around me if I were to write it out to a friend.  This, I am positive, is a direct result of Facebook (and a little bit of myspace too). I actually sometimes think to myself of my current status, in the third person, as though there was a little status bar attached to me at all times, monitoring exactly my mood/activity. Like when I almost get run over by a biker crossing the street, what pops into my head is the completion of a statement that starts with Valerie is… (in this case: so hungover she is unable to judge spatial relationships with moving objects). I don’t say this proudly. But I can’t escape it. It is like instead of actually discussing the world in front of me with the people who are present at that moment, witnessing it too, I can only internalize it for how I would tell my friends about it. And after all, they are always only a text message/phone call/IM/email away. As a result, I have never developed the easy bantering grace that it seems like everyone from our parents’ and grandparents’ generation has. 

What I am really getting at here is what one of my professors would call the “Ahem” moment. That little pause before you actually get to talking about whatever you are going to talk about by clearing your throat and talking about the fact that you are going to talk about it. Confusing I know, she in fact only references this phenomenon to tell us not to do it. 

So, now that that’s out of the way. I have decided to start writing a blog. This blog in fact. The above realization makes the fact that I am becoming even more entangled with this multi-headed hydra of media self representation slightly hilarious to me. And I hope you too. Because unless we can all realize the comedy of this orgy of self-indulgent expression, we will probably all melt into our computer screens and die.  

That may be a bit extreme. Get really bad carpal tunnel syndrome at the very least.  

As for the chatting, who knows? If I get too into this blog I may just stop talking out loud all together.