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some morning thinky
Jun. 3rd, 2009 08:58 amToday's XKCD made me laugh and laugh.
...And also wince, because I've been witness to conversations like that ("It'd be so much easier if everyone just did X!") where I silently cringed and thought, yeah, easier for you, because you just set up the rules to be easy for people who are like you. Sure the hell not easier for me. (Not always sex, either -- very often, social interactions in general. Like the, "It'd be easier if everyone just said what they meant and was straightforward about it!" Not for me it wouldn't. It'd be incredibly difficult.)
I think a lot of the bizarreness and complexity of social interactions is because they're a way of negotiating the fact that people are different. (Small talk, for instance, which many geeks that I know are downright proud of being terrible at, is useful as a way of testing the waters and figuring out which of several acceptable conversational dynamics is going to be most useful when talking to this particular person in this place at this time. It's also useful as a way of determining whether you want to continue with the conversation or just stick your nose back in a book. It's not airhead timewasting, it's more like initial field research.) "It'd be easier if everyone [did thing that makes sense to me]" assumes that it makes sense (emotional as well as logical) to everyone else, too.
(I'm sure I perpetrate this one myself, as well. In fact I know for certain I do, although I try not to. No high horses here.)
...And also wince, because I've been witness to conversations like that ("It'd be so much easier if everyone just did X!") where I silently cringed and thought, yeah, easier for you, because you just set up the rules to be easy for people who are like you. Sure the hell not easier for me. (Not always sex, either -- very often, social interactions in general. Like the, "It'd be easier if everyone just said what they meant and was straightforward about it!" Not for me it wouldn't. It'd be incredibly difficult.)
I think a lot of the bizarreness and complexity of social interactions is because they're a way of negotiating the fact that people are different. (Small talk, for instance, which many geeks that I know are downright proud of being terrible at, is useful as a way of testing the waters and figuring out which of several acceptable conversational dynamics is going to be most useful when talking to this particular person in this place at this time. It's also useful as a way of determining whether you want to continue with the conversation or just stick your nose back in a book. It's not airhead timewasting, it's more like initial field research.) "It'd be easier if everyone [did thing that makes sense to me]" assumes that it makes sense (emotional as well as logical) to everyone else, too.
(I'm sure I perpetrate this one myself, as well. In fact I know for certain I do, although I try not to. No high horses here.)
