The Kinds You Never Meet

Catherine said, "There's something I don't get."

Ho waited.

"You're telling me you have friends?"

"The best kinds," Ho said. "The kinds you never meet."

Excerpt from Slow Horses
by Mick Herron

 

On Minglers

The crystal entrance of the banquet hall was fogged by a pattern of handprints arranged in a sort of herringbone. Above the doors, an arching pane of etched glass proclaimed the name of their destination: THE MINGLER.

Adam whispered to Runa that "the Mingler" sounded like some back-alley fiend. Despite her black mood, Runa smirked, and replied that he wasn't exactly wrong about that. "It's a little bit like being strangled with small talk," she said.

Excerpt from The Fall of Babel
by Josiah Bancroft

 

Characters In Isolation

I never write about characters in isolation. And I can't think about a novel that is about a character in isolation. It would be a very experimental novel. Very much a break with what we consider the novel to be doing. Generally novels are about situating characters within social settings, and obviously within initmate relationships, personal relationships and families as well. That's how I conceive of character. A character to me is someone who is engaged in one or more dynamics at a given time, and I can't actually imagine what it would be like to write about a character who was just on their own all the time.

Out-of-context commentary from Sally Rooney, author of Normal People, during a literary event at London Review Bookshop

---

This statement is probably true for most authors. What kind of reader wants a story about a character who's on their own all the time? It would be like reading a novel about me! Although I find myself quite entertaining, an author would probably prefer to focus more on my cat and his enemies.

That said, it is a little sad that it takes so much imagination to write about solitary characters. The not-so-normal ones.

 

When Answers Are Expected

Farley goes quiet. I let the silence build until it fills every corner of the room. It leaks into his ears and his chest and his bladder and his bowels and every dark place in his mind. Very few people are comfortable with silence. It's one thing to be on a plane or in a train carriage or in a waiting room and to ignore those around you, but not when you know someone is expecting you to answer.

Excerpt from Good Girl, Bad Girl
by Michael Robotham

---

This scene describes something most of us know already, but it does so in a vivid way. I have often in the past found myself facing this quandary. I'm not one to speak without thinking through what I really mean, but people expect answers promptly. What I've learned, though, is that it's okay to let others be uncomfortable while waiting for me to answer. They can handle my silence for a little while. I don't need to be the one who's made to feel uncomfortable and rushed. In most cases, people will appreciate a more thoughtful response.

I'm okay with the silence. Others can be too.

 

On Silence Garnering Respect

Soon he essentially stopped talking. "I am retreating into silence as a defensive mode," he mentioned. Eventually, he was down to uttering just five words, and only to guards: yes; no; please; thank you. "I am surprised," he wrote, "by the amount of respect this garners me. That silence intimidates puzzles me. Silence is to me normal, comfortable." Later he added, "I will admit to feeling a little contempt for those who can't keep quiet."

Excerpt from The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
by Michael Finkel

 

On Preventing Unnecessary Homicides

... it was not unusual for us to go days without finding anything to say to each other.

The vast emotional distances between the individual members of a Scandinavian family are forged early and reinforced daily. Can you imagine growing up in a culture where you can never ask anyone anything about themselves? Where "How are you?" is considered a personal question that one is not obligated to answer. Where you are trained to always wait for others to first mention what is troubling them, even as you are trained to never mention what is troubling you. It must be a survival skill left over from the old Viking days when long silences were required to prevent unnecessary homicides during the long, dark winters when quarters were close and supplies were dwindling.

Excerpt from Lab Girl
by Hope Jahren

---

Although I wasn't raised by a Scandinavian family, I can imagine questions like "How are you?" feeling personal. Honestly, it took me a long time to not take every question seriously, as if people really wanted to know the answer. And describing how you are isn't always as simple as it seems.

Sometimes you have to shrug off the questions. And more often, you should probably shrug off the need to answer. Not everyone wants to know. Sometimes silences are good. And maybe, sometimes, the silences even prevent unnecessary homicides.

 

On Responding To Invitations

I never respond to invitations. It just smacks of desperation. The only event I am certain to attend is my funeral, and I hope to arrive very, very late.

Excerpt from The Hod King
by Josiah Bancroft

 

The Flatulent Philosophizing About The Chattiness Of Others

Like the uncertainty principle, the Drake Equation has had a layer of interpretation laid over it that obscures what it really says. In short, it's a series of guesses: about how many stars exist in the galaxy, what fraction of those have earth-like planets, what fraction of those planets have intelligent life, what fraction of those life forms would want to make contact, and so on. Drake originally calculated that ten sociable civilizations existed in our galaxy. But again, that was just an informed guess, which led many scientists to renounce it as flatulent philosophizing. How on earth, for instance, can we psychoanalyze aliens and figure out what percent want to chat?

Excerpt from The Disappearing Spoon
by Sam Kean

---

It's challenging to get away from the expectations of supposedly reasonable people, even on this planet. Apparently aliens are imagined to be quite sociable too. Is it so hard to imagine that they're perfectly happy and have no desire to connect with the entire rest of the universe?

Oh how we project.

 

Even AI's Need Breaks

I was stalling. I would have to interact with humans as an augmented human... I had imagined it as taking place from a distance, or in the spaces of a crowded transit ring. Interacting meant talking, and eye contact. I could already feel my performance capacity dropping.

Excerpt from Artifical Condition
by Martha Wella

This is a series about a self-described "murder bot", an intelligent, self-aware machine that dislikes being around humans despite having an addiction for all of the media we create.

Reviewers call Murder Bot "anti-social", although it clearly has a tendency to care for people.

As you know, I don't consider myself "anti-social". Only "unsocial". Yet I find "Murder Bot" highly entertaining. There are times when it needs to remind itself to respond to the humans, and also times when it needs to remind itself that humans want more than yes or no answers. I can relate. Remembering to interact is something easily neglected, especially while processing other stimuli.

There are also times when "Murder Bot" just wants to get away for some quiet time. Maybe, just maybe, the poor machine is simply introverted.

 

Could Have Done Anything, Been Quiet Even

Not one of you was normal, I said, and I watched him push his plate of half-eaten food towards me as though he were a child in a tantrum. Yes, misfits, I said. My son gathered misfits, although he himself, despite everything, was not a misfit; he could have done anything, he could have been quiet even, he had that capacity also, the one that is the rarest, he could have spent time alone with ease, he could look at a woman as though she were his equal, and he was grateful, good-mannered, intelligent. And he used all of it, I said, so he could lead a group of men who trusted him from place to place. I have no time for misfits, I said, but if you put two of you together you will not only get foolishness and the usual cruelty but you will also get a desperate need for something else. Gather together misfits, I said, pushing the plate back towards him, and you will get anything at all – fearlessness, ambition, anything – and before it dissolves or it grows, it will lead to what I saw and what I live with now.

Excerpt from The Testament of Mary
by Colm Tóibín

I get that this is supposedly a woman's perspective, and that the best of men from this fictional point of view are the ones who keep silent, but I like to take things out of context. Being quiet is a rare quality. I'm sure many do so with clenched teeth.

 

Silence Overcomes

Any trouble under the sun can be overcome by silence.

Excerpt from The Holy Man
by Susan Trott

 

A Needless Construct

We ate the rest of it in silence, enjoying the feeling of the cold morning air and hot food in our bellies.

That's one of the things I always appreciated about him. He didn't insist on small talk. He was just perfectly happy to sit quietly in your company, if that's what the situation felt like. I asked him about that once, in fact, and he said that he always thought of small talk as "one of those needless constructs we all inflict on each other to reinforce the idea that we belong".

Excerpt from Commune
by Joshua Gayou

 

On Bantering And Warmth

There is a group of six or seven people gathered just a little way behind me who have aroused my curiosity a little. I naturally assumed at first that they were a group of friends out together for the evening. But as I listened to their exchanges, it became apparent they were strangers who had just happened upon one another here on this spot behind me. Evidently, they had all paused a moment for the lights coming on, and then proceeded to fall into conversation with one another. As I watch them now, they are laughing together merrily. It is curious how people can build such warmth among themselves so swiftly. It is possible these particular persons are simply united by the anticipation of the evening ahead. But, then, I rather fancy it has more to do with this skill of bantering. Listening to them now, I can hear them exchanging one bantering remark after another. It is, I would suppose, the way many people like to proceed. In fact, it is possible my bench companion of a while ago expected me to banter with him -- in which case, I suppose I was something of a sorry disappointment. Perhaps it is indeed time I began to look at this whole matter of bantering more enthusiastically. After all, when one thinks about it, it is not a foolish thing to indulge in -- particularly if it is the case that in bantering lies the key to human warmth.

Excerpt from The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro

---

I like this quote mainly because I had similar thoughts and questions frequently while growing up. I wondered about the skill of talking and about whether people practiced at it, and I wondered whether people felt more or less close because of it all, etc.

But as I was looking up the wording for this quote online (I'd listened to the audio format), I found it referenced in a book called "Bullshit and Philosophy", which was amusing. Bullshitting is a good thing, it asserts, and I don't disagree. As it goes on to say:

"Just imagine that every conversation were to be informed with a strong concern for the truth. Conversations would be terribly fatiguing."

Then again, conversations are often fatiguing for me. Even the amusing ones.

 

Silence Holds No Fears

Still no response, but now I wasn't going to say anything either. Silence holds no fears for me. I never feel the urge to fill it as so many other people do.

Excerpt from Just One Damned Thing After Another
by Jodi Taylor

I must say that, though I relate to this quote for the most part, I do feel the urge to fill silences at times; usually it's to make others feel comfortable. Any uneasiness that I feel isn't due to the silence, but to another's discomfort. I'm not heartless, after all.

 

Not A Mentioner

"It wouldn't be his way, to mention it," Augustus said. "Woodrow don't mention nothing he can keep from mentioning. You couldn't call him a mentioner."

Excerpt from Lonesome Dove
by Larry McMurtry

 

Moving Apart

Call got a plate of food and went off by himself to eat. It was something he had always done -- moved apart, so he could be alone and think things out a little. In the old days, when he first developed the habit, the men had not understood. Occasionally one would follow him, wanting to chat. But they soon learned better -- nothing made Call sink deeper into silence than for someone to come around and start yapping when he wanted to be by himself.

Virtually all his life he had been in the position of leading groups of men, yet the truth was he had never liked groups. Men he admired for their abilities in action almost always brought themselves down in his estimation if he had to sit around and listen to them talk -- or watch them drink or play cards or run off after women. Listening to men talk usually made him feel more alone than if he were a mile away by himself under a tree. He had never really been able to take part in the talk. The endless talk of cards and women made him feel more set apart -- and even a little vain. If that was the best they could think of, then they were lucky they had him to lead them. It seemed immodest, but it was a thought that often came to him.

And the more he stayed apart, the more his presence made the men nervous.

Excerpt from Lonesome Dove
by Larry McMurtry

 

Community Member

... life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.

Excerpt from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie

 

Better Descriptors

"Hand me that book," Vivian says. She takes the hardbound green volume, with gold lettering and a line drawing of a girl with abundant red hair in a chignon on the front, and opens it. "Ah, yes, I remember," she says. "I was almost exactly the heroine's age when I read this for the first time. A teacher gave it to me -- my favorite teacher. You know, Miss Larsen." She leafs through the book slowly, stopping at a page here and there. "Anne talks so much, doesn't she? I was much shyer than that." She looks up. "What about you?"

"Sorry, I haven't read it," Molly says.

"No, no. I mean, were you shy as a girl? What am I saying, you're still a girl. But I mean when you were young?"

"Not exactly shy. I was -- quiet."

"Circumspect," Vivian says. "Watchful."

Molly turns these words over in her mind. Circumspect? Watchful? Is she? There was a time after her father died and after she was taken away, or her mother was taken away -- it's hard to know which came first, or if they happened at the same time -- that she stopped talking altogether. Everyone was talking at and about her, but nobody asked her opinion, or listened when she gave it. So she stopped trying. It was during this period that she would wake in the night and get out of bed to go to her parents' room, only to realize, standing in the hall, that she had no parents.

"Well, you're not exactly effervescent now, are you?" Vivian says. "But I saw you outside earlier when Jack dropped you off, and your face was" -- Vivian lifts her knobby hands, splaying her fingers -- "all lit up. You were talking up a storm."

"Were you spying on me?"

"Of course! How else am I going to find out anything about you?"

Excerpt from Orphan Train
by Christina Baker Kline

---

What I like about this passage, among other things, is that the word "shy" is replaced with two others: "circumspect" and "watchful" -- two words that are immeasurably more appropriate for introverts than "shy". One of these days, I'm going to compile a list of words that are more accurate in their descriptiveness. Maybe none of them alone will fit perfectly, but perhaps a combination would do nicely.

 

Ingoing: Redux

Within the pages of a book I recently read, being used in complete sentences, I was excited to find a term that I imagined I had coined: ingoing. Damn. I knew I should have registered a trademark for the word. I could at least be receiving royalties for its usage.

Regardless, I'm glad to see the term taking root.

The passage, without further ado:

---

"I have nothing at all against George."

"But?"

"But?"

"But there's a 'but' coming here, isn't there? It feels like there's a 'but' coming," mumbles Elsa.

Dad sighs.

"...But I suppose George and I are quite different in terms of our... personalities, perhaps. He's very..."

"Fun?"

Dad looks stressed again.

"I was going to say he seems very outgoing."

"And you're very... in-going?"

Dad fingers the steering wheel nervously.

"Why can't it be your mother's fault? Perhaps we don't visit you at Christmas because Mum doesn't like Lisette."

"Is that it?"

Dad looks uncomfortable. He's a rubbish liar. "No. Everyone likes Lisette, I'm well aware of it." He says it as people do when considering an extremely irritating character trait in the person they live with.

Elsa looks at him for a long time before she asks:

"Is that why Lisette loves you? Because you are very in-going?"

Dad smiles.

"I don't know why she loves me, if I'm to be quite honest."

"Do you love her?"

"Incredibly," he says, without any hesitation.

But then he immediately looks quite hesitant again.

"Are you going to ask why Mom and I stopped loving each other?"

"I was going to ask why you started."

"Was our marriage so terrible, in your view?"

Elsa shrugs, "I mean, you're very different, that's all. She doesn't like Apple, that sort of thing. And you kind of don't like Star Wars."

Excerpt from My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
by Fredrik Backman

 

Sometimes Opposites...

She liked talking and Ove liked keeping quiet. Retrospectively, Ove assumed that was what people meant when they said that people were compatible.

Excerpt from A Man Called Ove
by Fredrik Backman