No Fun at Parties

We had Friday afterwork drinks tonight, and instead of going to a local pub, we had it at the office itself. We have a new and quite nice office, with a great coffee area, perfectly for an informal get together. From about 4pm on, about 50 people came through to chat, enjoy a BYO drink, nibble on some snacks, and talk some crap.

Talk some work.

For many of the people, it seems like they struggle to talk about anything other than work, which makes sense, because most of them only have working relationships with their colleagues. However, for those of us who interact outside of work and have broader conversations at work, the discussions were much deeper.

Unfortunately...

I have the unendearing quality of talking about serious topics, rather than "smalltalk" conversations. However, the way I talk about these serious topics that can get people a little riled up, is not in an overly serious manner, with what I say filled with jokes and slightly uncomfortable humor, where people laugh, then feel bad for doing so. And, a lot of these conversations are the product and continuation of other conversations that have been had over the space of days or weeks.

The challenge in a workplace event like this, is that there are a lot of "random" people that end up being part of the conversation, or sitting on the sidelines of the discussion, just listening. This means that it is possible that they are not ready for a lot of the content, because they haven't been primed to it, as they weren't part of the original discussions, and the topics themselves might not be to their tastes, even if it is to others. However, there is a social pressure to at least feign interest.

And, this reminded me of how people interact online, where they interject themselves into discussions that aren't meant for them, yet they feel that they should respond. Generally, the people who do this are complaining about the content, where for instance a comedian like Gervais or Chapelle tells a joke on stage, it is then put on Twitter with no context around it, and people are outraged.

Why?

There seems to be an expectation that no matter where we are, we shouldn't face anything that makes us uncomfortable, or we disagree with, even if we are in a public space, filled with a highly diverse range of people, with a wide range of interests and personalities. It is interesting to me how the people who talk about "inclusion" are generally the same ones who are cancelling and excluding people who have different opinions and tastes in humor than themselves.

Oooh.... aah... so inclusive.

The entire value of conversation is to be able to hear other sides of our own views, to get perspectives, and to engage in discussions that allow us to battle test our belief systems. This is how we are able to evolve our thoughts, as well as support them. However, while there are better and worse ways to hold these discussions, we shouldn't expect other people to provide the conversation i the form that we want, with our "preference" generally being in a way that doesn't make us uncomfortable, or upset us.

Impossible.

When we are in public spaces, what we overhear is not an opt-in decision. However, the option we do have is to say to ourselves, this is not for me, and walk away if we choose. But, what might be more valuable, is to actually participate in the discussion, because like one of my colleagues said to me yesterday, then there is the chance to get clarity, and learn. And, the learning isn't only in the perspective, but also learning how to hear what we don't want to hear.

We live in a culture that is increasingly digital, with less "personal" space, and more platform space with a load of random strangers. As such, we need to understand that not everyone is our friend, not everything that is said we will agree with, and that whether we are reading content from others, or putting content there ourselves, the audience is going to largely be split across many people who are going to agree and disagree, as well as have very different styles for their own "next steps" responses.

At least in my own experience, I get the feeling that due to people's online lives and the ability to curate so much of their consumption, as well as the algorithms that feed it, we have lost our face to face conversational ability. We aren't very good at debating a topic anymore, but rather, we get polarized and emotionally unstable instead. It is no wonder why there is so much violence and emotional breaks due to conversations that used to just be "heated arguments".

Thankfully, I rarely cross lines with my colleagues, and since they know me quite well, they are pretty willing to be part of the conversation and ask for clarity, before getting upset. And of course, in the workplace, I don't talk about anything "too controversial", though these days the bar for what is upsetting to some people is incredibly low.

Overall, it was a nice couple of hours talking with some very smart people, and a good start to the weekend. Getting together once a month would be ideal.

Most people likely can't stand me more than that.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]