“That’ll be sixteen dollars and thirty cents,” said the guy behind the counter at the Queen Anne office supply store.
I was out walking around the neighborhood to run a few errands, and at this particular stop I was buying some blank CD's. I had noticed a number of simple blue signs and things with the number “12” printed very large on them, most notably a huge flag on top of the space needle, and I had assumed that these had something to do with the Seahawks playoff game tomorrow against my Dallas Cowboys.
Curious as to the significance of this number, I asked the clerk, “Who is number twelve, is that Shaun Alexander or something?”
The clerk, who was evidently not a huge Hawks fan, replied, “I don’t know. I think it’s for the Twelfth Man or something.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Big game tomorrow against Dallas, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess there is,” he responded, apparently just realizing that the playoffs were starting the next day in our NFL-crazed city.
“I’m actually from Texas, so I’m a Cowboys fan,” I said, still unaware that he didn’t give a crap about football.
“That’ll be interesting tomorrow. All your friends will hate you for being the only person rooting against Seattle,” he said jovially. This was probably the first time in the conversation where one of us said something that actually engaged the other person where they were at, him coming to my level as a football fan and meeting me there. Watch how I handle it.
“Actually, pretty much all of my friends are from out of town, so none of them are big Seahawks fans. They won’t really care,” I said, ignoring the fact that he actually was trying to join me in the conversation and taking it someplace else completely.
“Okay,” he said, handing me my receipt. “Have a nice day.”
“Have a good one,” I waved back as I walked out of the store, just beginning to realize much too late the awkwardness that had just occurred.
I thought about this seemingly insignificant awkward conversation the whole walk home. I thought about how we weren’t really having a conversation, instead I was coming from one point of view and he another, and when he actually made an attempt to meet me where I was, I shifted and took it someplace else, rejecting him for the sake of correcting the inaccuracy of his statement.
This example is admittedly really very small, but I wonder what this short scene of mismeeting reveals of my own character and the ways in which I approach relationships, whether to the guy behind the counter at the office supply store or to my good friends.
The problem seems to be that my comments to him didn’t really respond genuinely to him or to his statements, or as native Latin speakers (Roman, not Hispanic) and modern day lawyers would say, my comments were “non sequitur”, which means, “It does not follow”. What would it look like for me to follow, to yield to another person, instead of remaining stoic in whatever arbitrary location I happen to be in and forcing the other to shift around in several different directions to try to find me? How can I love my neighbor if I won’t at least meet him halfway?
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4 comments:
Where does truth fall in the conversation? Are you frustrated that you didn't agree with him?
I guess i'm just confused because i think i would have handled the situation the same way, and I don't see anything wrong with that.
maybe it was the tone of your voice or something?
i don't really know. maybe more than anything it was the triviality of the whole conversation. i was having a conversation with this guy at the store, but there was no connection, so was there even really a conversation? i think i can be overly critical towards myself at times, and this is an example, but i also really believe that my words in that situation were no more than clanging cymbals - i was really just making noise for the sake of noise.
worthy of a post? maybe not. part of me just wanted to play at writing dialog. at the same time though, i think that better things could have been said, things that might have been of more worth or significance. what is the point of speaking if nothing of significance is said?
there is a place for small talk, granted, but don't you see that i wasn't even responding to what the guy was saying? we were in two different worlds having two separate conversations, or, more accurately, non-conversations.
your thoughts?
I completely understand what you're saying... I think the clanging cymbals reference worked perfectly.
I guess the question is: was there really anything you could do to engage yourself with the person (aside from a completely different conversation).
i don't know. maybe. but maybe not in this particular situation. i bet there is something. we probably would not have had some sort of deep conversation, because most people are terrified of conversations that go beyond the surface, and perhaps rightfully so. i guess i just want to be the kind of person that invites depth of interaction in normal mundane situations like that, so that when there is potential i don't just careen by at a hundred miles per hour and miss it. when i miss those moments, i miss a chance to love another human being who happens to be a "neighbor" of mine.
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