-----“Where are you from”, I believe either the right or left side of my mother’s uterus. You see I was only a tiny zygote/embryo so I can’t remember which side had a thicker lining of blood and tissue…”
Have you ever stopped to notice what we actually talk about? Unless confined to solitude, the majority of us on a daily basis make conversation with one another. However what do we actually say or converse about? These questions are fresh in my mind as I am continually meeting new people here in Amsterdam. For instance yesterday evening, I once again was subjected to the ominous meet and greet activity.
Last year’s MAIPR group and the new round of MAIPR students were introduced to each other in a modern little bar that is cozily situated in the little ally next to the Theater school. As we trickled in everyone, new and old, gathered along a long wooden table in a nice brightly lit room under tall ceilings and amongst trendy wall hangings. After the traditional round the circle “hi my name is” introductions we were faced with the strange task of ‘meeting’. What exactly do we try and achieve during this encounter?
I suppose the easy answer is ‘to get to know one another’, which in my experience is find out a few key facts in order to put people in a nice little box, wrap them up in a few stereotypes, bow on top, NEXT. Indeed last night there was this sort of urgency to ‘meet everyone’. After a few quick comments from a girl I met she said, “well I should probably be moving on and meeting the others”. It was if she was missing out on something if she didn’t gather a few quick facts from everyone. I thought, hmm either I’m boring or she really feels the need to thoroughly make the rounds. I’m hoping/guessing the second was the case because she only gave me the chance to explain where I was from and where in Amsterdam I was living. So is that what constitutes ‘meeting someone’? Why the necessity to ‘meet everyone’. Is this a competition? Should we be weeding out who is the most worthy to engage in conversation with? Yet how is that possible in the span of 5-10 minutes? I wonder during these mass meet-greet-forced socialization-gatherings if it would be more productive to say ok, right count off, and pair up. You have to spend the next hour speaking with this person and no one else. Then perhaps you could really have a chat. In fact a friend once said, “you know its best just to say to a girl you meet at one of these sessions-hey lets sit down and go for a drink and actually have a conversation”—nonetheless now considering this situation the reason his suggestion works is perhaps by switching the social setting to something that alleviates the pressure from ‘missing out on someone’ you can really talk with someone…( why cant you do it in the bigger group is still an issue). Yet moreover, what is this having a ‘chat’ all about. Would we ‘meet them’. better? What is this ‘meeting’? Do we tell stories about ourselves, engage in political debate, look for points of similarities, differences, comment about the structure of the room or everything: what is this ‘getting to know someone and where to start! I have noticed in most new situations the first question is notoriously “where are you from”. The question is simple enough and indeed so routine that we never even stop to ponder it. Yet who cares and why do we ask it?
The only way I can answer this is from my own perspective. Now, reflecting upon my own reasoning, I believe ask where people are from for two reasons. The first being so I can find a point of commonality and determine how to keep the conversation going. “Oh your from Finland wow so the weather here for you must be fantastic”. “Wow, Argentina what a long plane ride that must have been”. Now typing this I realize what a conversation killer this tactic really is. So I get two more lines out of the person, maybe a comment about their comfort or weather not but usually the comments are shallow “yah good, or it was fun” unless something really strange happened and you strike gold… to what extent am I asking just to ask a question…hear my own voice…or maybe I really do care? The second and probably more important reason I ask is so I can begin to gage/judge a person by comparing them to either, stereotypes of people from the country they have just announced, or previous encounter’s with others of the same nationality. As a result I can pretend to think I actually know something about them. And there is a strange sort of power in this knowing. What power though? So you know someone is from England; so they might like Cricket, they might spread Marmite on their bread, and have a past of living in eternally grey and gloomy weather. Yet they might not. The mere possibility of applying stereotypes gives us the idea that we know something about people and knowledge is power or better the feeling of power? However what happens when our assumptions don’t match up with our predications. “Hi I’m Ed, and I’m from Australia” a person says in a distinctly United States accent. Or how about a tall blond guy announcing he’s from Mexico. These answers of course confuse and intrigue people, oh wow you don’t sound like you’re form Australia. You don’t look like you’re from Mexico. Oh really (right like I didn’t know that I don’t fit the stereotype so thanks captain obvious!) …. Conversation dies. Yet I think it points to the bigger question of belonging, and how we ‘do’ belonging and why other people care if we fit these stereotypes. Or perhaps people really don’t care and they are merely just trying to find a way to keep the conversation going.
In the U.S.A there is no way to look. You can be Asian-American, Hispanic-American, African-American (but what do any of those terms really mean anyways ‘asian… Indian? Japanese? Philipino? Chinese?). Regardless your nationality will be accepted as long as you sound American. Sound and sight seem to be the only two categories we place people by. “Wow you certainly smell like a Canadian” is definitely something I’ve never heard before. But when the person doesn’t ‘fit’ these stereotypes or have an ‘socially unified’ identity they have to wear this non-conformity like a badge, a yellow star pinned to their coat I am from here: but I’m physically, auditorily, religiously, etc. different. Once again this returns to the big interesting idea of identity. Or how about when you have a mixed background. Well… I’m from where to start. People don’t seem to like this answer. It doesn’t give them a nice neat one line summary or provide that ‘power’ of unified knowledge and easy categorization. In my own case I always start out by saying the “U.S.A” which given the size and diversity people usually pry for a more specific answer… and that of course gets a bit tricky…(I’m form Hawaii but do not look like a pacific islander then because my parents wanted to teach me about climate diversity i.e. the weather equivilant of heaven and hell I moved to buffalo NY from there just hopped over to NZ for a few years, after that well here there and everywhere… as the list grows to me it seems people stop really listening unless they hear a country that interests them). I think from now on when asked where I’m from I’m going to say: well the specific location? I believe either the right or left side of my mother’s uterus. You see I was only a tiny zygote/embryo so I can’t remember which side had a thicker lining of blood and tissue…I might get a pity laugh or perhaps a confused stare which I probably would interpret as the person thinking I’m crazy. Or if I said ‘I’m from god” or “The rib of Adam” I think I’d freak most people out unless I happen to be striking up a conversation with a religious enthusiast.
Well what is a more appropriate question to get to ‘know someone’, or is our geographic background sufficient? What if we started by asking, “what has been the most life changing experience” or “what is a traumatic event that really effected the way you see the world”. Yet these topics usually require easing into and might seem a bit too ‘confrontational’ for a first encounter. Or how about a completely nonsense question like: “if you had to live on a desert island for the rest of your life what two things would you take with you?” or “if you had to eat one food for the rest of your life what would it be?”
Still why do we need to know anything about the person at all? To be honest the best meet and greet experiences I have had have started with little or no forced personal information. Facts about ‘identity’ and the ‘meeting’ usually come naturally. I remember one of the smoothest (vs. awkard) meetings I’ve ever had was at a talk. I sat next to this average sized dark curly haired young kiwi guy called Mike. He appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary wore a shirt, vest, jeans, sneakers, carried a backpack (ya- a real rebel!) and seemed relaxed considering the circumstances (I guess he was one of the only guys at a talk hosted by Rape Crisis Dunedin…so his very presence made him a bit intriguing). The first thing he said to me was merely an observation about his interests, something like, “I really enjoy the way this room is cozy. It really is welcoming for being a lecture hall”. I agreed, discussed, and we went on to have a discussion about lecture halls, moving on to university students and slowly the conversation blossomed and began to address many attractive topics. I didn’t even find out his name until later when my friend asked how I had found ‘Mike’ her ex flatmate. To this I replied, “wow I didn’t even know his name was Mike or one single fact about him but we had a fantastic time chatting”. Unfortunately though Mike and I never ran into each other again, but I do still remember many of the ideas and the thoughts he left me.
Another example has a 'happier' (more 'complete?') ending. This person I now consider to be quite a good friend. During this case our relationship initially began by email. My now friend sent a message about an article I had written for the Critic (our student magazine) concerning the illegal organ trade. It began about the original topic but our email exchange soon ballooned and led to many a discussion about ethics and more particularly provocative as well as hugely humorous enjoyable emails. Yet, I do not think it was until the fifth or sixth email of a fantastic and interesting debate, did I find out anything out about him!
Thus I wonder about this ‘natural’ tendency to get to ‘know’ someone by gathering personal facts. I think our eagerness to construct an identity often is built on hollow scaffolding, the person hands us the pieces but ultimately we create our own ‘structure’ of ‘them’ using tools we already had in the shed. I wonder if we gave the person more room to create their own home in our head, and allowed identity to emerge as thoughts, opinions, shared silliness, laughs, likes and little jokes, later supplemented by direct personal facts, would we have deeper and more meaningful encounters.
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