As part of my job, I engage in small talk with a lot of people day in and day out.
‘How are you today?’
‘I’m fine, thank you. And you?’
‘I’m alright. Thank you.’
At this point, I or the other person either shut up or look to the weather to continue this intellectually stimulating conversation.
Bad weather days are perfect for this purpose. That’s one of the reasons I don’t resent bad weather. The other day when it was stormy, I picked up a lot more fodder to feed to my ever expanding exciting dialogues.
‘Isn’t it awful this strong wind?!’
They nodded knowingly.
‘I nearly got blown away while I was waiting for the bus. It’s so strong.’
Now it’s my turn to nod knowingly and showed some sympathy or counter with my own experience with the wind.
I think bad weather is a necessity for social harmony. Otherwise, when two people who don’t know each other have to interact, what is there to say? They would have to stare at each other wordlessly and awkwardly in an uncomfortable silence and wait with bated breath for the time to pass. Unlike dogs, we can’t exactly go around sniffing each other as a way of socializing.
So, the weather is our social saviour. The more we can complain about it, the better. It’s a safe topic as there would be very few people who would disagree when you say ‘the strong wind is awful’ or ‘the rain is miserable’ or ‘the snow is dangerous’.
But it struck me that complaining is the quickest way to connect with people. The more negative you are, the more you can talk to people about it and see the connection forming instantly.
As I’m a chatty person, I have now built up a number of regular customers who hang around a little longer talking to me. After the initial chit chat, they let me in on a little part of their life.
The issues they tell me about are almost always negative. They never seem to share good parts of their life with me.
‘Oh, my dog has got cancer.’
‘I’m skint. I lost my wallet last week.’
‘My knees are giving me trouble.’
The strange thing is that I find myself looking for negative things to counter with. Depending on the degree of misfortune, I look for something at the same intensity from my life.
So, I’d respond to ‘I’ve got a cold’ with ‘I’ve got a sore finger’ looking down at my hand. I’d counter ‘my dog has got cancer’ with ‘my cat died of food poisoning’ even though that happened over ten years ago.
It became so automatic that the other day I found myself looking for something negative to say about myself at the checkout at New Look. While paying for the pair of jeans with my contactless card, I commented how easy it was to spend money these days. The friendly chatty lady agreed with me and we started complaining about how we spend more than we should.
I came out asking myself why I even made something up to complain. It’s not true that I spend too much. I’m careful with my money and I don’t even remember the last time I bought some new clothes. Why did I unthinkingly find something not even true to complain about to form a temporary connection with another girl?
But I couldn’t imagine being able to elicit a connection if I said ‘this easy way to spend money doesn’t affect me as I’m responsible with my money. I love that trait of myself.’ She would very likely move me along quickly.
Why do we feel more comfortable with people who beat themselves up? People who seem proud of themselves are seen as stuck up.
It seems that our minds are naturally focused on negative things and we don’t even see good things that are happening in our life.
For example, people don’t appreciate it when buses are running on time and they get to their desired places without any problem. They would notice it when one bus comes late and that would be the topic of discussion and instant bond between strangers for hours to come. They would even refer back to when the same thing happened to them ten years ago and they were late for their own wedding.
As I sat contemplating this weird trait of humans in one of the rare quiet times at work, a woman came in. She fluffed up her wind-blown hair and exclaimed, ‘what awful weather!’ as she looked in my direction.
Oh my God! Not another weather conversation! Somebody please get me out of here!