victor's guide to awkward conversations

it's been a while since i returned to toronto from a long time away in waterloo. naturally, there were a lot of people that i haven't seen or talked to for a while. during the christmas holiday, i was able to see those that i haven't seen not only because i have been away from home, but also because they were away from their own universities or wherever. christmas is a good time to see these people again and catch up.

but what has stood out to me the most is how some of the conversations i've had with people. i have always thought that i am a good conversationalist, and based on that classification, that i have enough experience to rate some of the conversations i had to be subpar.

no, they were just outright awkward.

in light of joanna's recent blog post of msn conversations, i too have some observations and tips of how to deal with awkward conversations. but i will be very detailed, as this topic concerns a lot of people.


1. the pre-entry

a) i trust that most of us want to prevent awkward conversations. have an idea as to what kind of people will lead you to an awkward conversation. make a list of these people. i tend to have a tier based list, something like "high awkward, middle awkward, low awkward, regular conversationalists". a tier based list will help you firstly to keep an eye on such people, and secondly would let you know how badly you want to avoid these people.

b) based on the tier of awkwardness, use your discretion to avoid those people. how this is done is up to you, but there are some incredible ways that i have used. the key is to avoid eye contact. if you see a person approaching you, you cannot let the person make eye contact with you. creative ways of achieving this is moving in a way that causes your eyes to be blocked from the person's line of vision. this could be anything ranging from other people's heads, pillars, furniture, or even a book or something like that. the movement that you make must be minimal, in effort to not appear that you are desperately trying to get away from the person. another thing you could do is get divert your attention to something else, such that you appear to not be in the chatting condition. this very much works in your favour in the christian context, firstly because serving is considered a good thing, and secondly because even if the person does end up starting a conversation with you, you have an escape route. more on this later. another option is to start a conversation with someone higher on the awkward list, preferably on the regular conversationalist level. this may turn off the person from wanting to start a conversation with you.

2. the entry

a) if the person has managed to get through your pre-emptive defenses, then there is no choice but to engage the threat. as previously stated, you do not want the person to realize that you are trying to get away them, because you would just be a total jerk. therefore, you must welcome the person with opening arms. "opening arms" will depend on whether you are male or female, and whether the person is male or female. i will only speak from a male perspective, since i happen to be male.

ai) male to female: this can be treated in a few ways, depending on how close you are with the girl. the art of administering hugs leads to a whole discussion on its own. the key to a good hug is the force of the hug. the hold must be firm and confident, but soft and gentle at the same time. such force is generally felt by the bodily contact, so the greater surface area, the more thorough the hug is. therefore, maximize surface area and input a strong but soft amount of force. i will point out a few more important things to note.

firstly, note the arms. i am a firm believer that the male must support the lower region, because the male should be a support for the female. this is even biblical. anyway, this means that the male must use the secondary arm (mine is left) to hold the lower back of the girl, and the strong arm (mine is right) to hold the upper back of the girl. with this said, your secondary arm must be located below the girl's arm so as to not cause confusion where each of your arms will go.

the second point to note is dealing with height. i used to try bending my knees to adjust to the height, but i think girls will consider this slightly offensive to the height difference, because you have to put so much effort just to adjust. i guess the next best thing is to bend the waist instead (or get her a step stool). the danger of this is the shoulder (generally i aim my head to the right of her head. also be sure of this and make it clear to her, otherwise you might end up kissing her in the lips.. unless that is what you are going for.. ) could clear take off her head. i have done this on multiple occasions, and have not found a better solution other than bend lower. i realize that lower bending means that there will be less bodily contact, but that may have to do.

the third point is note items in your hand. i once made the mistake of not knowing what to do with an item in my hand, and it ended up in between the hug. that was an experience that i do not want to repeat and i felt like an absolute idiot. the funny thing was that it was a box, and it couldn't withstand the force, so the hug was adjusted to preserve the integrity of the box. this of course ruined the hug altogether, because both bodily contact and a good force were not there. therefore, friends, AVOID this at all costs! a few ways to prevent this is to adminster a one handed hug. keep the utilized arm away, but be sure to replace the missing application of force with a greater force by the other arm. the other way obviously is the still use the arm and not let it get in the way of anything. depending on the item that you are holding, this may not be a good idea though. use your discretion.

the proper administering of a hug can lead to a good boost for a conversation. it will also give you a reputation as a good hugger. of course, it is not always appropriate to give the girl a hug. if this is the case, proceed to the next section aii.

aii) male to male (or male to unhuggable female): obviously, you do not deliver the aforementioned hug to a male. otherwise you would be considered a homersexual. what can be done instead is the head nod, consisting of head raising at a very low angle (high angle will look stupid) at a moderately high angular velocity. also the regular handshake, the man hug, or the man handshake are options, depending on how close you are with the guy. something that i have progressively been using is the slap on the shoulder, which i find is a good way of acknowledging a guy's presence, but also has an element of care to it. guys generally don't care how they are acknowledged, so either of these methods could work just fine. in the case of the unhuggable females, the handshake methods will not work so well. females do not appreciate such gestures, and the best methods to use are either the head nod or the light shoulder tap. one other option that you will have involves eye contact, which will be discussed next.

b) once the initial greeting as been delivered, then you are in the fray. now a note on eye contact. of course there are levels of intensity of eye contact, and it is up to you to decide what level of eye contact you would like. to benefit the potential awkwardness to come, i recommend the darting eye contact. keep only split second eye contact with the person, and the divert your eyes to anything but the person. this will show the person you are either not that interested in the conversation, or you are just a poor conversationalist and will lose interest in talking to you. the other extreme is i guess.. the piercing eye contact. i have been using this level of eye contact more and more often now, to look into the person and give them my utmost attention, letting the person know that i care about every single thing that comes out of their mouth. i use this for people that i genuinely care about, but for combatting the weak-willed, this could also be used as a weapon. a very large number of people are afraid of eye contact. the power of continuous eye contact may cause the person to feel uncomfortable and shy away. as you can see, this can be used in both an additive and subtractive manner, and thus must be carefully wielded. it is up to your discretion to decide what level between the two extremes you are to use upon the person you are conversing with. eye contact can also be used as a method of acknowledgement, so this will require an initial higher level of eye contact.

3. the conversation

a) this of course is the most important part of dealing with the awkward conversation. we all have a default list of things to talk about with people in general, and it should be clear to you all the time. everyone starts with "how are you?" or "how's it going?" all the time. if you are able to add more substance to the start, do so. the conversation needs to be as far away as "how are you?" as much as possible in order for the conversation to build. conversations tend to start off well when you talk about what each of you have been doing, such as school or work. apparently, what we "do" is considered "catch-up". based on that, start off with this. this will last you at least two to four exchanges in talk. based on what as been mentioned, attempt to branch off to more topics. ask for more detail on various topics. depending on the quality of the conversationalist (you and the person), this can last very many exchanges, and your issue of an awkward conversation may actually be solved. the awkwardness will fade away when what you talk about goes from what you do to what you think of or what you think about.

b) for every single person that you suspect will lead to an awkward conversation, it is important to prepare a list of conversation topics before the conversations actually occur. such lists can either be tailored for each person, or it can be general stories about yourself that you are willing to tell anyone. because a conversation involves participation from both parties, be sure to prepare both questions for the person as well as stories that you could tell the person.

c) different measures must be taken if you are unable to guide the conversation. if the person starts the conversation off demanding something, or not really gearing for a conversation, then the conversation phase as described here can be skipped, and a certain escape route technique can be used. see below.

d) there should always be a way to relieve tension. such tension relief is the elimination of then dead silence. when the conversation is not ready to be ended but dead silence is occuring, something must fill the silence if the conversation is unable to be picked up again. various things can be done in this situation, such as the positive acknowledgement again. unfortunately, this too can get a bit dry if done continually. what i like to do (and people have obviously seen this) is say "yeah!" in my own inflection. this (to me) at least kills the dead silence and gives me time to think of something more to say. this too cannot be used repeatedly, as you will sound like an idiot.

4. the escape route

a) the escape route is the key to dealing with awkward conversations. i personally believe that well executed escape routes are the optimal solution to awkward conversations. there are a few ways to do this properly:

ai) acknowledgement of the awkward conversation. even with the techniques listed above, a conversation could end stale very quickly. when the conversation is dying, you need to be swift in declaring the conversation over. awkwardness is in many ways caused by the dead silence, and avoiding this silence can save it. to declare the conversation over, i have seen some people say things like "well it was nice talking to you, see you around" or "talk to you later". this technique must be built up gradually, as an abrupt use of this will signify desperation to get out. gradualness is described by positive acknowledgement to the conversation topics such as "wow it's really great that you've been keeping so busy" or things of this nature.

i have seen some people just acknowledge the awkward conversation with something like a nod, and then just walk off. this is poor management of the conversation. do NOT do this, friends. this again is the problem of abruptness. it all has to be SMOOTH.

aii) the action method. this is a favoured method of mine, and i mentioned it earlier. a very elegant method to back out of a conversation is to tell the person that you need to do something. this could be something as moving chairs after fellowship, helping clean up anything, or whatever. anything will do. even like.. you have to throw away your cup. of course, this technique cannot be used until some conversation has begun, but this will significantly cut down conversation time as well as allow for escape. do be aware that the less significant your action is, the more likely the person will feel like you are desperate to get out of the conversation. be sure to that you keep an eye on the person when you are performing your action. there may be an expectation from the person that you will return to the conversation. if that is the case, you may be obligated to do so. this is still helpful, as you have gained more time to think of things to talk about, and the conversation is reset.

aiii) the last method i can think of right now is an emergency tactic. this involves the use of the field. as mentioned before, the key to a conversation is eye contact, and conversation should continue if general eye contact still exists. as such, the termination of eye contact could lead to the termination of the conversation. this is not as simple as not looking at the person, because that would be considered rude and kind of stupid. you will need to make use of the environment. you need to manage objects between your body and the other person's body, and enough objects between the two bodies will interfere with the conversation. busy environments are obviously good for this, and this will not work at all for calm environments. if the objects prevent you from maintaining constant eye contact with the person, or if the volume of the environment is loud enough for it to be an excuse to stop the conversation, say so in the conversation and suggest another time or location for the conversation. bring this up only when this is an obvious problem. inconspicuous control of the location of the conversation can be done to trigger those conditions. be very careful with this technique because appropriate conditions are quite rare.

aiv) something i forgot to put on that happened to me today: the assist method. one way to make a conversation less awkward is the addition of another participant in the conversation. i find that the awkwardness of a group of people is easier to bear than that of a one on one conversation. if there ways to incorporate more people to assist you in the conversation, this will make your job easier. if you are the one bringing a new person, you are still obligated to maintain the conversation, unless your friend has control of it. if the person is the one that brings a person in, then a viable escape option is to allow the two to talk together long enough, then you can RUN OFF! they are too occupied in their conversation to bother with you. this method can only be used if there are people around. so if you're lucky, then use this. keep an eye out.

b) if the conversation is not under your control, there is something else that you can do. the conversation can be transformed from a conversation into just an acknowledgement or command or a distribution of information. this is characterized by the lack of pre-entry and entry techniques. just acknowledge the information given and received and MOVE ON. such a technique will cause the conversation to not be a conversation at all, and you would have dodged the awkward bullet hardcore.

these are the most general rules, tips and techniques that i can think of. there are many specific situations that i have come to learn to deal with that i may not be able to think of now, and i would only pull those techniques out of the goody bag at the right time. if you have any questions, feel free to ask the expert.