I’m not exactly the world’s most social person. This is a bit of an understatement.
Much has been made lately at my place of work of the classic old Myers-Briggs personality tests and their typologies. I have to smile wryly when people ask if I know anything about personality tests. But in those, as can be imagined, my needle is sort of buried in the “I” (Introvert) as opposed to the “E” (Extrovert). Still struggling with why Thinking and Feeling are considered distinct, but boy am I buried in the I.
There’s another letter, though, that probably plays just as much into this particular anecdote, which is “J”. Judging. As opposed to “P”, Perceiving. This burial of the needle toward one side is far less extreme than the old I/E dichotomy, but there’s a whole lot of J goin’ on. And the IJ combination creates not only a lack of prioritization toward the social, but a good deal of dismissal of those one isn’t interested in.
Which leads me to ducking behind pillars. I did it today, and it almost shocked me when I realized that my quick-walk high-tailing it out of the Powell Street melee was, in fact, the proverbial ducking behind a pillar after all. And boy did I need to duck, since I was wearing a blatant Brandeis sweatshirt, making any possible confusion regarding identity impossibly moot. It was not till I boarded the train that I realized the person in question was ducking behind pillars in my presence as far back as when we shared the same school. Mutually assured ducking.
For the unfamiliar, the ducking behind pillar question is a not-too-distant metaphor for indicating people one would rather avoid talking to than ever interact with again in one’s life. I don’t think this is nearly the harsh judgment to levy on past participants in one’s life that most people seem to. The etymology is relatively obvious: who would you, if seeing someone across a room that happened to have a conveniently placed pillar between you, duck behind said pillar to avoid speaking with? For whatever reason.
This exercise emerged from a conversation between Fish and I about this question regarding our high school class. I once estimated, outlandishly according to Fish, that I would duck behind a pillar to avoid roughly 75% of our class of 1998 peers. A later name-by-name analysis we conducted revealed 75% to be a conservative estimate – the actual number was closer to 85%. (Editor’s note: I am still considering attending my 10-year high school reunion this September.)
But before any drastic conclusions are reached about what this implies and how much I must have hated high school and my classmates, I should note my particular reasons for ducking behind pillars. Often it’s simply to avoid the type of conversation that emerges from chance bumpings-into. The person may be completely neutral, or even slightly positive, in general and/or in one’s memory. But the nature of making obligatory small talk, separated by years or even decades from any real contact with said person, is often aggravating enough to turn a good person into a bad interaction. One that leaves one with slightly tainted memories of said individual, souring what otherwise wouldn’t have been given much thought.
It’s often much the same interaction as one has on IM conversations, which is why I haven’t logged into IM (with a couple of weird purpose-specific exceptions) since college. “Hi.” “Hey.” “How’s it going?” “Not bad and you.” “Fine fine.” “Good.” “So… whatchya up to?” “Not much, y’know. Same old same old. You?” “Yup, about the same.” Repeat, repeat, repeat.
And you’d think a distance of years would change this pattern. But it really doesn’t. Often, it exacerbates it. How to even begin to explain the last 8 years of one’s life? One can’t, and doesn’t attempt. Or how to even begin to explain how dull and predictable the last 8 years have been? One can, and doesn’t want to. It’s all the same fucking day, man. (Editor’s note: Janice Joplin)
And yet I’m Facebook-friends with some of these people. Nothing to say, nothing to catch up on, no good times to relive. Just wampeters and granfalloons. (Editor’s note: Kurt Vonnegut) Grand wastes of everyone’s time.
It must be stressed here that I am just as much a waste of their time as they are of mine. This is not some egotistical elevation of my time, energy, or efforts over others’. They should duck behind pillars if they see me first too. I prioritize my time only in as much as I personally make judgments about other people that they, in turn, should be making (Editor’s note: my opinion) about the people they have nothing to say to. If everyone did this (Editor’s note: Immanuel Kant), we’d all be free of those awkward, neck-scratching conversations and be all the more reassured that those speaking to us were really truly interested in what we had to say. (Editor’s note: …or, I suppose, really insecure. Or attention-starved. But mostly interested.)
And about that reunion. Our reunion hosts have made the somewhat dubious decision to have RSVP’s made public in real-time on a website. Presumably this is to create some sort of critical mass and move momentum toward more and more people participating because they just have to see so-and-so and they’ll definitely be there! Of course, I really think the impact is much more to the contrary. Something about having to actually face those names in monochrome on a computer screen. Curiosity can’t get the best of awkwardness in an era where one can just Google anyone with a distinctive name to see what they’re up to. And considering that at least two people who I’d push a pillar on top of rather than have to speak to (Editor’s note: not really) have RSVP’ed in the Yes column, it’s looking like my decision is more and more made up.
Strangers reading this blog are just never going to e-mail me after this post, huh?
