Games we play

Today I happened to be at one meeting where I didn’t know anybody too well. There were around 15 people, a person responsible for the meeting and one man, who was making a presentation. The topic isn’t important, but the fact is that he was a lousy speaker. Lot of pauses, no structure, repeating obvious facts, insincere, thoughts jumping from one place to another, so you could go mad by just trying to track one sentence.

As I had to be there, I was trying to concentrate and act politely. Yet my impatience was growing with every sentence, as I felt my time was being wasted and I gained no new information. So I looked out of the window, played with my fingers, observed other listeners and searched any other way of entertainment.

At one point I started to look more and more often at the person responsible for the meeting, growing agony naked in my eyes: “Please, lady, do something, end it!”. But as she had invited the speaker, she obviously felt more responsible and was listening with special care, asking additional questions and ignoring my and many others sufferings. Truly, I hadn’t felt a long time as when I was a child, sitting in church and listening to speech I don’t understand a word of and my parents have accidentally left my color pencils at home.

So I came to the stage where I was already playing fantasy games. I imagined how I would stand up and just sincerely express my feelings. I’m sure you’ve all played with thoughts you never really plan to realize. And suddenly I noticed the huge contrast between the thought-level and reality. All the people accepted the situation as it was and smiled. The lady and the speaker had a conversation like: “Yes, this is so relevant and informative what you are saying! I wish people like you would speak more often” and reply going in the same bureaucratic jargon: “I’m pleased and thrilled to be here. I’m sure you are all busy people and have your other obligations, but you took some time from your schedule to come here and contribute to this debate we are having.. etc etc”.

Suddenly everything seemed almost unreal as if it was a big play and we all were actors in it. Everyone knew their part is if someone had taught it to them.

You know children, the impolite creatures, they are always the ones who say improper things to strangers and make the parents feel uncomfortable. For example tell a neighbor, who has rang the door-bell, that mother can’t come, she is changing her sanitary towels in the bathroom (as happened to one woman I read from a magazine). Or ask: “Why does this uncle look so angry?” with a loud voice (which is just a common situation for any parent). Children don’t know that life is full of different games and you have to know the rules. So they are sincere and shock us, because we have forgotten, that there is world outside of the rules set by our environment.

Next time you spend time with a random group of people try to look the situation as if it was a play, where everyone have their part. If you are among your friends where people feel totally comfortable you probably meet some difficulties. But when you are in a situation, where people see each other the first time and the set is more formal, you most probably will be surprised (and have much of silent fun). I can imagine, that a person from a different cultural background (might even say, that from Estonian countryside, where etiquette is something different) would have felt very confused in my described meeting and wondered, why no-one says what they really think.

I don’t encourage now to set aside all the rules, games are part of the everyday communication and make our life easier. But I’m sure it’s possible to play these games in a more authentic way and even then meeting a important CEO or any other opinion leader, where the rules should be even more fixed, some out of the box sincerity doesn’t hurt. In fact – I think being human is always the best choice and desperately needed in the world, where people sometimes wear masks just because they’ve forgotten alternatives.

I’m glad we have children, though, to remind us the “ABC of being human”. Raw material, I admit, but better than crap already carved in stone.