The art of conversation

Yawn. Pretty Lady was out a bit late last night. She went to a reading of Sex Radicals. She is not trying to be provocative by telling you this; truthfully, Sex Radicals have always rather bored Pretty Lady, and it has only gotten worse with maturity. But one of the Sex Radicals was a good friend of a good friend of Pretty Lady's, and an excellent writer as well. Her presentation, indeed, was far superior to the others. (Note to others: Spanking, unadorned, is only interesting in a literary context for a minute or so, three at the outside. Beyond this one must elaborate upon circumstance, if one wishes to hold the attention of one's audience.)

But that is all by the way. What Pretty Lady really intended to discuss were the circumstances of the cozy group hanging out afterward, in the Quiet Bar with Couches. (Bless Quiet Bars with Couches. Why in the world have not the vast majority of other bars followed suit with this simple, wondrous concept? Pretty Lady generally avoids bars, because she so often cannot sit comfortably, see her friends clearly, or hear them speak. This may be an attraction if one's friends are ugly and boring, but Pretty Lady does not hang out with those people.)

So many digressions. At any rate. In the Quiet Bar, Pretty Lady was able to make the acquaintance of a very nice young gentleman, who impressed her at first blush by paying absolutely equal attention to herself and to the morbidly obese, ambiguously gendered, socially awkward individual sitting next to her. In Pretty Lady's book, this gets an automatic fifty points for Civility 101. The three of us were soon involved in an animated discussion which ranged from the Miss Lower East Side Pageant to photographic technique to web design to the fascism of liberalism to the war in Iraq. Unfortunately, when we reached the war in Iraq, there it stuck.

It is not that the gentleman did not have interesting insights upon the war in Iraq. It is not that he lacked information, or that he had not thought things through. It is not that his opinions offended Pretty Lady. It is that after the first twenty minutes of hearing his opinions, Pretty Lady had ceased attempting to get a word in edgewise. Pretty Lady greatly dislikes the feeling of Being a Bore, and when a person has interrupted and overridden her comments more than three times in the course of ten minutes, she naturally comes to the conclusion that she is boring them. Such a feeling eventually produces discomfort, and the inchoate desire to Get Away.

So she tactfully waited until the gentleman took a bathroom break, bid farewell to her friends and departed. She regretted not exploring further conversation with her friend's friend, but since what little of the discussion she could glean seemed to center around Random Sex, she doesn't think she missed much.

(The thing that bothers Pretty Lady about Sex Radicals is that their Sex Radicalism is so evidently, obviously, pleadingly about Something Else, which they have grown their Sex Radicalism to defend, like a burl round a wasp nest. Thus the whole discussion is evidently, obviously, pleadingly Not Real, and this drives Pretty Lady bananas. But since this is likely to upset every one of Pretty Lady's readers, on all sides of the socio-political fence, please forget she said it.)

What she intended to say (ahem) is that Conversation is an Interactive Art. It is not a monologue. Monologues are for stage presentations, television, and blogging. What with the plethora of wireless, free Blogspot accounts, and Open Mikes in the city, there is no excuse for monologuing at any other time. The joy of conversation is wrapped up in the fact that nobody should know where it is going; good conversation explores uncharted territory, including, as it does, the input and influence of diverse minds and experiences.

This is why the basic Rules of Civility are so stringent about things such as interruption, the asking of intelligent questions, and the inadvisability of selectively ignoring people based upon such irrelevancies as personal appearance. They are set up, hopefully, to provide maximum conversational joy for all included. It is a terrible pity that these rules no longer seem to be taught in society at large.

Pretty Lady blames television. After growing up on a diet of inane, one-way blather, once young people are launched into the adult world, they naturally assume that THEY are TV. Thus they blather blithely away, occasionally aware that they are losing their audience, but unable to conceive of how to regain it except by blathering ever more frenetically.

Thus, Pretty Lady has some simple advice for young persons who wonder, sadly, why Pretty Ladies keep disappearing on them as soon as they head for the bathroom. The secret is this: Learn to ask questions. You may start with a question that seems impossibly inane, such as "what do you do?" and follow from there; do not worry about being boring. People simply love to discuss themselves, as you yourself already know. Once the question is asked, you must then listen to the answer. The proof that you have been listening is that you are now able to ask a more-relevant, and hopefully intelligent, question.

Pretty Lady also recommends that every individual entering into a social context equip themselves with a monitor for the Sound of their Own Voice. This monitor should be set with an alarm that goes off every five minutes, preferably three. No matter how witty, fascinating, deep or hilarious your statements may be, after three minutes of them this alarm should trigger the statement, "but enough of this. What have YOU to say, my dear?"

Pretty Lady knows that this process may appear painful and frustrating at first. But she guarantees that it will ultimately result in an old age full of friendships which are rewarding in hitherto inconceivable ways. The alternative is too hideous to contemplate.