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Hi Sarah! If you're not feeling like an outright creepoid, you're not ... creating!? Let's make that the new rule! :-) THANK YOU for sharing this instrinsically comedic eavesdropped convo! (Sidenote: Can't tell you how many conversations I've overheard where the men are doing 85% of the talking. Including countless Tinder/Hinge/Bumble dates!)

What you're touching on is that SO much of what's happening in conversations (especially between people who know each other less) is *performance*. This is adjacent to, but a little different from, the gleaming tile floor that covers subtext. Performance is more about bravado and power moves: trying to make the other person see them a certain way, trying to drive the conversation, trying to seduce/charm/ingratiate.

Also: You know how people HATE to hear their own voice on a recording? Part of that is for sure just being confronted with your own visceral reality, and the weird-ick of it all, but I have a theory that a LOT of that is that when we hear ourselves speaking we're suddenly aware of how much bullshit performance we're doing ourselves—how disingenuous or conniving (it's not a "bad person" thing, just a human thing). Which is to say: I bet you if these people overheard themselves as you heard them, they would also cringe. :-)

I'd invite you to copy & paste this comment into Lesson #2 (now live!), because people will be exploring their eavesdropped gems there. And thank you for sharing!!

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Oh gosh - yes! He was full on performance mode. I will copy it over now. Thanks.

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