Shortly before my son was born, it really sank in that my wife and I were going to be his primary role models for a number of years (and hopefully someone he bounces things off for the rest of our lives). The insight made me take stock of myself. I’ve done this before for numerous reasons, and it’s always an uncomfortable process, but unlike other times, I knew this time someone was going to be learning from me. Certain changes had to be made.
I’m not talking about massive character defects, those corruptions of mind, body, and soul the old adage “skeletons in the closet” was cast to describe. Those can stay rooted where they are. I keep them nice and hidden like everyone else, so I’m not too worried about my son mimicking the peculiarities of my mind. It’s not like I’m a serial killer on the side.
I’m talking about the trivial characteristics of oneself. You know, the little things that drive the other people in your life absolutely insane. I definitely don’t want my son giving me a dose of my own medicine. Who would want that?! So I decided to cast out my own gremlins before they ran amuck in my son’s life.
First on that list was Become More Social.
I’m an introvert. I grew up in a family of mostly loud extroverts, and being the serious, youngest one who’s been the target of criticism my whole life, I’m sure you can draw your own conclusions for why I keep my head in my shell without an hourly couch session to clue you in.
And I’m not just an introvert. I’m a watchful introvert. I absorb the social behaviors of others without intermingling (I like to call it being scientific) then use what I see in my writing later. In other words, I’m a leech. A social leech.
I don’t want my son to be a social leech.
My son’s going to be who he’s going to be, but I’d like to inspire good, social graces in him, and not raise a kid who turns back inside on his way out to get the mail because the neighbor across the street he doesn’t know so well is also going out to get his mail and he doesn’t know how to say “Hi.” You extroverts have no idea how hard that tiny word (which isn’t much more than a breath) is to say when you’re an introvert and approach every social interaction with an exit strategy in place.
So how to become more social?
I decided to start small and engage in small talk the next time I went to the grocery store and was asked, “How are you” by the clerk, always a stressful moment for me. But I told myself in a few months, my son was going to be watching, so act how you’d want him to act one day.
When the moment came and was asked how I was, I responded by saying I was fine and “Thank you” and then, “How are you?”
Everybody knows this isn’t meant to be the precursor to an intimate conversation between two people. In fact, depending on the store, it might be part of a script, but no matter the motives, it occurred to me that for as many times as a clerk says these words to shoppers throughout their shift, they probably hardly ever are asked it in return, so I thought it was a pleasant way to start.
I was right.
The clerk was a young woman, somewhere between 16 and 30 (I’m a terrible judge of age), and she seemed pleased by my civility, which shocked me because when I was in her shoes twenty years ago and someone asked me how I was doing, I clammed up and started to sweat, uttering a barely audible, “Fine.”
However, I was unprepared for response and wasn’t ready for someone who clearly had her social behaviors down pat. She said, “I’m so bored. It seems like I’ve been having the same conversation over and over all day long.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
Then she said, “What’s your favorite movie? How about that? That would be different.”
I was bagging my groceries, putting them into the cart, and realized after several very long seconds, I no longer heard the scanner beeping as she rang up my items. I looked over, and she stood looking at me, a container of yogurt paused above the scanner.
“Oh,” I said, “you’re serious. Are you serious?”
Typical introvert response.
“Yeah,” she said. “What’s your favorite movie?”
You’re probably not so introverted as me, so you may or may not understand that an epic internal debate ensued. I wasn’t expecting such a personal question. A lot can be gleaned from that response. If you don’t think so, ask yourself what you’d think about me if I told you it was Natural Born Killers and not, say, Fried Green Tomatoes (which is high on my list).
She resumed ringing up my purchase, and I finally admitted, “Take Shelter.”
Which is a movie about a rural man who foresees an apocalyptic storm and, despite personal and public criticism and speculation, spends his savings to build an underground bunker where he and his family can hideout. See, I told you, telling.
Now it was my turn.
“What’s yours?” I ventured, expecting the same level of disclosure.
And what do I get back, “I don’t really have one.”
I found the answer lacking, given the considerable amount of consideration I put into our two-minute discourse, which meant I was either bested by another introvert posing as an extrovert for her job or baited by another social leech.
I thought about my son, and decided that I’ll let him learn social graces from his mother, while I continue to write about the social behaviors of others…like my son.
