Just listen.
If there is one lesson that I learned from spending half a year marooned in a laundry room where no one spoke English, it is simply to listen. I'm not saying I'm totally cured of my former illnesses (talking for the sake of talking or trying to constantly crack jokes instead of actually listening), but spending that much time in an environment where any response on your part requires two weeks of advance notice to ensure all the tenses match really makes you weigh the importance of any statement you make. And more often than not you realize that what you have to say is not worth what you could be listening to.
Well apparently no one taught this lesson to Ivy League graduates. Because, based on my experience during a 4th of July party, they are incapable of shutting the fuck up for any moment longer than it takes to take a sip from their glasses of wine. I see occasional silent moments as a welcome moment to catch my breath and reflect on the conversation so far. They, on the other hand, seem to consider occasional silent moments as welcome as loud farts in polite company. I suppose I shouldn't judge them for not listening, because with their constant, loud ramblings the problem is actually that they don't even hear--actual active listening would be too much to ask for.
Before I tell you how they interacted with me I should first describe how they interacted with each other. Put it this way: I have lived in Israel, a land that seems to be in a constant state of war. Even if you forget about the fact that the Jews and Arabs can't seem to go five seconds without killing the other (and themselves), even your average bus stop in Israel becomes a battleground as old women with shopping carts slide tackle beefy Russian youths or small children to get on the bus first. Aggression? I thought I was used to it.
But nothing compares to Ivy League conversations. No, they weren't having a passionate debate--I could understand and forgive that. No, this was a simple conversation. But never has a lighthearted conversation proven more stressful for me. Yale Brown would crack some joke, and before we could get out the second "ha" in "haha" Harvard Penn-Columbia would loudly butt in with a riff on the previous joke. Struggling to keep up with what was being said, we'd very quickly be interrupted by Cornell Dartmouth who cracked another joke with a level of desperate, competitive aggression in his voice that made me visualize old Israeli women with their purple-dyed hair elbowing me to get on the bus. Not wanting to be outdone, Yale Brown (his voice rising in an attempt to drown out our increasingly uneasy laughter) quickly rattled off another witty remark with anxiety in his voice that made me concerned that he was going to push the other jokers into the pool to kill off the competition. At this point I started backing away, not wanting to be there should their words eventually fail them, requiring them to resort to a knife fight or a jousting tournament. As I backed away I heard Harvard Penn-Columbia, practically hysterical with worry over the comedic capabilities of Yale Brown, yell off a funny remark at an almost barbaric volume.
I don't know if I'm doing a good enough job of conveying to you how weird this conversation was. We (everyone at the party) were all laughing under the pretense that we were civilized human beings witnessing witty banter between a group of well-educated and civilized human beings, but we were basically witnessing a verbal brawl. This wasn't a fun conversation like I'm used to with my friends, where something funny is said, enjoyed for a moment, and then sometimes improved upon. No, this was a conversation in which all the participants seemed to be laboring under the delusion that there would be a winner at the end, with some sort of prize handed out.
So I walked away. And was confronted by another Ivy League-er. Oh Jesus. It was like some sort of zombie uprising, except with more popped collars. They were everywhere and you couldn't escape these fuckers. This latest Ivy League-er was high on some drug that's too expensive for me to have even heard of. Her idea of polite of conversation was to basically just rapid-fire questions at me.
Where are you from?
Well, not too far from here, actually. What about y--
How old are you?
23..
What did you get your degree in?
Religious Studie--
When did you graduate?
This ye--
What are you doing now?
Well, until September I--
I kid you not, this went on for about five minutes. I'm not entirely sure how she managed to come up with enough questions to vomit up for the whole time, but I suppose it's exactly that kind of quick-thinking that got her into the Ivy League. Me though, I started to get uncomfortable pretty quickly. I'm not the sort of person who naturally thinks to ask strangers who ask me questions to tell me about themselves in return, but in the past few years I've started to get better about forcing myself to be polite. I thoroughly stressed myself out over how to behave appropriately in this situation, but no etiquette guide I've ever read and no scolding I ever received from my parents ever said, "If you're ever at a party and someone who is clearly on drugs approaches you, the polite thing to do is X." Maybe that's a hole in the etiquette book market that I should try to fill. Anyway, I started considering escape routes. Through the hedge to the neighbor's house? Jumping in the pool? I can't swim, but maybe drowning would be preferable to enduring this Gestapo-like questioning.
I got so stressed by plotting an escape, trying to figure out how to handle the situation politely, and trying to rapidly produce answers to these never-ending questions that I actually managed to forget where I went to college. In case there is any doubt, let me just assure you that I was perfectly sober. But after about three minutes of scrambling to keep up with the questioning and constant interruptions, when she blurted out, "Where did you go to college?" all I could come up with was an anxious, "Uh...uhh....uhh...uh....um.."
Eventually I was liberated from the conversation (she insisted on taking pictures with me even though I'd just met her, and then after breaking away from the pose she--oh merciful God!--forgot about me and latched on to some other poor, brave soul), but I can't help but speculate on her life. I wonder what job interviews are like for her.
Anyway, this whole experience made me really appreciate my growing ability to listen. And, more importantly, it's made me want to work to increase my listening skills. These Ivy League party-goers have no idea how powerful a second of silence can be, or even what it feels like to hear the question that you bothered asking actually being answered. The lesson here: just be quiet.
Oh, and also: don't do drugs.
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