Too many words.

I made a lot of resolutions when I started college. None of them had to do with actual academics. They had to do with my social life. I decided that I had to stop being terribly shy and learn how to make friends. Lots of friends. I tried out a bunch of techniques that I had come up with from years and years of reading about how fun and cool people made friends. These techniques (along with a lot of heartfelt, teen-age angsty prayers) helped me make a lot of friends, and not just friends but really cool friends.

I thought you might be more likely to believe me if you heard a witness to my friend-making skills. Here is a clip of my super-smart, super-more-friendly-than-me, friend Sarah giving a speech for her Standford speech workshop that begins by talking about me. (I think everyone who read my blog already knows about a blog she writes for, but if not, here is the link.)

Anyway, my freshman year was delightful. I am still in awe of all the really cool/brilliant people who hung out with me.

I would like to focus on one of my making friends techniques that has gotten me in to trouble.

I decided that silence=awkwardness and rather than have any more silences in my life I would just always fill awkward moments with whatever conversation I could think of. In fact, to avoid awkward silences altogether I would rush to fill in any moment of quiet with some kind of chatter. I did this a lot when I worked as a social worker and also as a missionary.

Sometimes it worked well. For example, early on in my mission in Greece,I was speaking with some ward members and they soon started speaking Greek that I couldn't understand. I guess they realized they were speaking over my head so they stopped talking. To avoid a silence I fell back on my favorite conversation starter in Greece which was to pick a random word they said then ask them what it meant in English. I picked "kounelaki." They told me in meant "rabbit."
So, I said the first thing I could think of about rabbits, hoping to kick-start the conversation again:

"Rabbits. I like rabbits."
Hmm. Not quite the conversation starter I'd hoped for. So I continued. "I like rabbits because they have a lot of babies and they uh..." I didn't know the Greek word for "hop" so I put my hands in front of me like paws and did a few desperate hops for them.

Luckily, they thought this was really funny and we ended up being best friends. In fact when I got married one girl sent me a CD with a Greek children's rhyme about rabbits. So in my book, that conversation was a success.

However, sometimes my filling in awkward silences have not ended so well. Mostly, in regards to people telling me they were going to commit suicide.

I worked in a nursing home for a while as a recreation assistant. This is why, to this day, I am an expert at calling out Bingo numbers. One day I was making my rounds, trying to appear cheery and perky because those are qualities that nursing homes seem to always be short of, when a lady grabbed my arm and said I was nice so she wanted to tell me goodbye because she was going to kill herself in an hour or so.

I don't remember how she planned on doing this, but I do remember taking her very seriously. So, told her she couldn't. She asked me why not. Nobody had ever asked me that before, but I knew silence to that question would be a wrong choice so I just opened my mouth and let whatever was in there pop out: "Because we are having an Ice Cream Social tonight, and you can't miss it."

That's right, she wanted a reason to live and I gave her ice cream. She looked confused so I just kept going, telling her what a big deal it was (it wasn't)and that we'd been planning it for months (we hadn't) and there would be really great ice cream (there wouldn't). The funny thing is that instead of laughing in my face, she very seriously asked if there would be cherries. I assured her there would be. She politely said she might be able to hold on until after the social. I told her that was great then I ran off to tell someone who actually dealt with suicide threats and then to the kitchen to make sure there were cherries.

The second time someone was discussing suicide with me it wasn't really a threat. I was doing a home visit while I was working for Human Services. This was a handicapped lady whose grandson lived with her and treated her terribly and bullied her out of her money and didn't even mow the lawn for her. She thought it was her fault he was a walnut-faced buffoon and wished she could do more for him. She said she wished she was dead because she was a drain on everyone around her. She was unhappy and only spending money that could be better used for other people. She asked me why she should live when she was so unhappy and her life was a burden to others.

Once again this "why should I live" question. You'd think I would have prepared an answer this time. I decided to try and turn it into a joke. After all, when people are thinking they have no purpose in life it is always a good time for a real knee-slapper. Note to world: Never let me be your suicide counselor. So I said:

"Your life can't possibly be that much of a burden to others. I mean, sure maybe if it cost them money for you to breathe or something, maybe you'd be a burden. But breathing isn't a burden to anyone. Air is free!" I don't know why I thought that would be funny. But it definitely wasn't when she pointed her cane to the big oxygen tank behind me that she used for breathing at night.

We sat there in a silence that was more scary than awkward and then I excused myself and went back to the office, gave my boss a full report, and then high-tailed it back to Utah.

Anyway, sometimes I still try to fill in awkward silences, but now I always try to do it with a question. This works unless I accidentally ask a super personal question. (A few days ago I asked the following question of one of my University of Phoenix students who had called me with a question about an assignment I'd posted: "So, do you really love your boyfriend or are you just with him because you don't want to be alone?"

Congratulations on reading to the end of this post. My goal is to write a short post tomorrow.