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We've all been in awkward situations for one reason of another, most of which normally stem from bumping into someone that we weren't really expecting to see, nor did we really want to see. There can be many reason for this: |
- Perhaps you made an embarrassingly drunken idiot of yourself in front of them last time that you spoke.
- Maybe it's an ex-partner where things ended unexpectedly or on bad terms.
- It could be that it's someone that you hooked up with when you really shouldn't have, you said you would give them a call then didn't for any number of illegitimate reasons.
- It could even be an old friend that you had a falling out with or simply lost contact with.
- Maybe it is someone that you don't really know well enough to have a full length conversation, but you've met them a few times and there a friend of a friend so... you take a stab and conversing to not seem rude.
- It could be that it's someone that you actually know fairly well but for whatever reason you can't quite remember their name.
- In a few isolated instances it can be someone mistaking you for someone else.
- Or perhaps it's just someone that is overly friendly and it leaves you feeling uncomfortable to be in their presence.
When faced with a situation like this we tend to fall on a few tried and tested techniques to help us survive the clearly discernible tension. Firstly after a faint attempt at an enthusiastic greeting we fall straight into the standardised generic conversation that is all to familiar. We begin uttering questions and phrases that refer to the past tense of the relationship, phrases that are normally vague enough that you don't open up old wounds or bring up something that you shouldn't... especially if you're not entirely sure how you know that person. In fact I once had a 20 min conversation with someone in a bar that talked in depth about our old school friends, some of the wacky adventures that we all used to get up too and asked me about a job that I had apparently been doing for the last 5 years... however not one of these things correlated with anything I have ever done in my life... ever! It was just that they were so thrilled to catch up I didn't have the heart to tell them so humoured them until I could make my excuses and move on. So it's definitely important to keep things vague especially if you are attempting to talk about a job in the area of aviation that you've never actually had. Here is a brief list of some of the archetypal things that we say in order to cope with the situation:
- "so... where you working now?"
- "do you see (insert related friend here repeat with all the possible people you can think of that they also know) around much?"
- "what have you been up to any way it's been ages?"
- "do you still (insert generic hobby here that you remember them talking about once)?"
Basically we clutch at linguistic straws do break the numerous prolonged silences in an effort to let enough time pass before we can make our excuses and make our escape. The amount of time that we dedicate to speaking to this person is based on a few factors the length of the relationship that we had, how close we were to them initially, the reasoning behind not seeing them for this length of time and the level of interest we have in rekindling the relationship.
Time then is something that is also very important here and is also responsible for one other thing you'll find yourself constantly doing when in an awkward situation and that is checking the time, the frequency of this will give you some indication as to just how awkward the situation actually is. I'm not sure if this is an attempt to feign that we are actually in a rush in order for us to make our exit, or if we are simply measuring how painfully long seconds have become as we do our best to not actively gnaw off our own foot like a trapped animal in order to get the hell out of there.
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