talking without speaking

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a good and bad thing happened to me last week...


i came to realize that i'd drifted away from another one of my friends... our friendship has been slowly eroded by time and diverging interests, but it became painfully clear the other day that things just aren't [and maybe never will be] the way they were... it pained me that we couldn't even muster up a conversation with each other, even as we rode the same bus and after several weeks of not having spoken or hung out... instead of showing any enthusiasm at the opportunity to catch up, i was met with indifference and the things that i've recently been involved with -- and truly been excited about -- were derided and summarily dismissed...

this experience isn't new or unique, of course... amongst the many acquaintances and contacts i have, i think it's gotten to the point where i could probably count the number of "friends" [i.e. people who i know that would: a) pick up the phone if i called in the middle of the night in an emergency; b) be in my wedding party should i get married; c) would come to my funeral] on one hand... that probably sounds way more tragic than i intended, but the point is simply that i'm quite disappointed about another friendship that has gone by the wayside...

we could both play the blame game, but what good would that do?


the positive experience that happened was the conversation i had with a total stranger on that same bus ride... although she must have been sorry when she first realized she picked the wrong guy to talk politics with [i.e. i didn't shut up once i got going], in the end i think she was glad she made the comment about my campaign button [which got the conversation started in the first place]... in those short but precious 40 minutes, i managed to defy the post-modernist lament of isolation in urban public space and actually connect, brief as it was, with a random person...

whether or not i see her again is beside the point [although i did invite her to the conference i'm helping to organize]... it was that rare glimpse of humanity in the hustle-and-bustle of the everyday, that rare opportunity to bridge the gaps of urban solitudes, that made that experience stand out...


the irony of the form that this very message is taking isn't lost on me...

I usually love talking to cabbies, those mobile ambassadors who provide news, traffic updates and political opinions — especially during hot election periods like this when I'd have loved some fresh thoughts on Stephen Harper. Nowadays more and more cabbies are on their cellphone the second I sit down and they'll ignore me like a suitcase in the back seat. But cabs are only part of our increasingly anonymous era where random conversations with strangers are getting hard to find.

We used to talk to the butcher, baker and candlestick-maker, but most of them have now been replaced by big-box stores where customer relations matter more than human relations. Sure the clerks at large stores like still ask: "Did you find everything you were looking for, sir?" but they couldn't care less what you answer. Making conversation is practically considered rude. Try to chat with a supermarket cashier and watch her look at you like she's going to press the alarm button. "Attention security! Weird guy in Aisle 3 who wants to talk."

You can't even have an intimate yak with a stranger on the phone any more. You spend too much time pushing buttons and listening for whether to press 9 — or 19 — for English, then 2 for "more choices," or 3 for "way too many choices." When you finally do get a human, they're not much friendlier. I phoned my branch recently to discuss a banking problem and was rerouted to some guy in Toronto, or Texas, or Taiwan for all I know. While old-style bank tellers could greet you by your name, when I told this guy who I was, he just asked for my mother's maiden name and my shoe size to prove I really was me.

When I'd passed the test, I spent several more minutes slowly getting him to sympathize with my problem, and he promised to get right back to me. Instead, I heard from another person who said it didn't matter who I talked to because they all had the same information on their computers. But it did matter — emotionally. I'd formed a tiny relationship with one person, who'd finally started to understand I wasn't a widget. Now, I was stuck with a new person who thought I was.

Our changing workplaces are also conversation-killers as more people work at home alone. There may be more efficiency when you eliminate the water cooler, but there's also less humanity. You lose the chance to hear about your colleagues' children who are getting married, or their nephews who are getting out of prison. You miss the little exchanges of life where you learn surprising things — and sometimes reveal your own.

The irony is we've never heard more about "chat." There are chat rooms, chat lines and text-messaging chats, but real chat is disappearing. We walk in crowds of people, all talking on the cellphone while ignoring those around us. We listen to our iPods, lost in our own soundtracks, and many people now watch TV shows on them too, their heads buried in the cybersand like social ostriches. We send e-mail invitations instead of making phone calls because fewer words are lost in random chatter. But something else is lost, as isolation replaces conversation.

So, what can you do to put the chit back in chat? Next time you're at the supermarket, put down your cellphone and talk to your aisle-mate. When you go to the dentist, ask the assistant how her teeth are. Chat up a stranger today — and help make society more social.

— JOSH FREED, Toronto Star (2006/01/21)

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