During a recent dinner event my boyfriend, Rich, and I found ourselves seated at a round table in an elegant restaurant where the acoustics made it challenging for us to hear any conversation. We smiled at each other and joked about how we could at least hear each other. Just then we heard laughter breakout from across the large table and we picked up on the word “infertility” followed by laughter and the word “Bush”!
Our evening progressed with slightly more amusement as the lady to the left of Rich tried to engage Rich into the conversation sparked when someone said “Bush”. I suppose the topic of politics around this election season is to be expected. But what was odd were the non-sequesters being thrown out and intertwined into the evening’s conversation. So not only could we not hear, but we were also about to find our selves talking to someone who brought up out-of-context topics. (This same individual is hard of hearing and spoke with a monotone voice.)
Fast forward an hour and we continue to politely try to show through facial expressions and verbal cues that we are interested in the topics and following (or trying to follow) the mind numbing conversation. Rich later admitted that he would have left (or ran out) without word, but he said as I was with him he chose to stay.
The bizarre breakdown in communication can leave one feeling they are in some psychedelic twilight zone. This holds true even for all social situations ranging from work to personal life. So the moral of the story is that we need to generally rely on multiple senses when engaging in most social situations to decrease ambiguity.
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