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

 

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

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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 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

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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.

 

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