Awkwardness of Size
At an activity I participated in recently a concept came to mind. This concept of course was that of Awkwardness and how it seems to arise. First and foremost, I asked myself the question of what normally accompanies awkwardness. This vital element that I believed to contribute to awkwardness was a group. Can awkwardness really occur without some sort of group? I reflected this and believed that although it may not always come to mind, there may be some awkwardness towards yourself, such as not being comfortable with your body for say. There are other several instances where this could be used, however I believed that some form of group contributed quite significantly to the idea of awkwardness. Without a group, awkwardness may not even exist. I will now discuss three main concepts to do with this notion of discomfort: Size, Setting and Individuals. We’ll be discussing them interchangeably.
Use your imagination for a second and envision the following: You’re at a party at a friend’s house. You are the only one there so far and no awkwardness is present at all. You and your friend are just relaxing in their main living area, except for one thing. The room is largely spaced out and there isn’t much ‘filler’ in the room (such as tables, lamps etc.) Everything is going swell, until the first person besides you arrives to the party. The individual who arrives next is a friend, but one of the individuals who you consider a ‘friend’ but are actually usually just tagging along with whatever your group of association does. We’ll call him ‘John’ for now. John has brought another friend with him. One who was not invited, but just decided to come for a good time (‘Vladimir’). You perform to normal human greeting; Hi how are you John..Hi Vladimir, nice to meet you. Following the greetings, you all take a seat and its at this point when the awkwardness begins to settle in. The conversation has turned into a giant question congregation. So, where are you from Vladimir? How do you know John? Where do you go to school? Oh, you don’t go to School…you ran away from your corrupt parents?..Interesting. Along with the ‘question parade’, the room is not aiding the moment at all. You are having to use a higher volume of voice just to relay your messages across. To add to the situation, John and Vladimir have come extremely early and no others come for more than an hour. The short talk has begun to take a toll on you and awkwardness is clearly present. The stretches begin, yawns are tempted and you are getting quite bored of sipping that glass of water you have.
With that situation in mind, think about the cause of awkwardness. Is it mainly due to the individuals, setting or ‘size’ of the gathering. To begin, the individuals are not what you call the ‘easiest people to talk to’. They constantly give one word answers and seem to have no interest in what you are saying. They mainly just came to ‘party’, not socialize. Or does it have to do with the setting/size? Not only are you in a room whereby you have to use quite a loud voice just to get a point across, but the room is bare (very little visual stimulation one might say, besides that stupid disco light). I ask this now. Would the situation be better if a) it were different individuals b) the room was smaller with some tables and such or c) both. Personally, I can think of reasons to which both could contribute alone, without the other, and vice versa; occur as a result of the other. In other words, I am curious as to why only slightly different situations can change the outcome of awkwardness. Lets say for example that you are at a party with a bunch of close friends. For a number, we’ll say 50 of you. The only problem is you are in a 9x9 room, the windows are closed and its beginning to smell of body odour. Not to mention feeling the breath of anyone you talk to on your face. Awkward Or Not? Now the opposite. You and your friends (10 of you this time at a party of 25 people) are at a party. You know the other individuals at the party, except you choose to stick together to avoid what? Awkwardness. Not only this, but the party is at a giant house. Do you avoid the others by going to places where they aren’t? Or decide to socialize. This is dependent on whether you consider these new types of situations awkward and also what you decide is the key component to awkwardness; Size/Setting or Individuals.
In the end, as I have somewhat indicated throughout the concept of Awkwardness, you can see that the obvious determinant is what you want it to be. If you do not care about the size/setting, then individuals may be your main deterrent. No matter what anyone believes, awkwardness will be present at times whether we like it or not. The possibilities for this concept are virtually endless and I have only presented a couple of concepts to which I believe are the main ‘motives’ for Awkwardness. The others come from you. Utilise ta tête.
Jay.Concepts.Inc.
posted by Glen. @ 6:56 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
An excellent point jay, I have found myself in these situations many times before.
Another situation to ponder is that of the "gathering" smaller then a party, but larger then a hang out. This can cause confusion. Must all people at this gathering sit together in a large awkward circle or can they break up into smaller pockets throughout the house? And if people come in slowly to join this gathering they will of course join where everyone is, but then when does this living room circle get too big and chaotic? Just what is the protocol for a gathering?
alison.concepts.inc
Excellent post Jay. You have managed to take the somewhat amorphous notion of awkwardness and tether it to structure and well-thought-out examples.
My comment will consist of a humble and rather poorly thought out addition - something that I see as a natural conclusion to follow from your piece.
Awkwardness, to me, falls into a category of intangible emotion. You know what it is but there is no material quality to it. You can't pick it up or show it to someone and say "look, I got some awkwardness." You can't buy it at Wal-Mart and, since one can by anything at Wal-Mart, we're left confused with what it actually is. Other emotions that fall into this category for me are things like stress, hatred, beauty, kindness, affection etc. We can't physically see any of these things . . . but they are there and sometimes we know it.
This brings me to my main point: perhaps the best/only way to deal with the problem of awkwardness is to defy it entirely through awareness of it. If one learns to become aware of awkwardness and can identify its causes (size, setting, and individuals being some of them), one can gain control of the situation by elevating themselves above it in a certain way. I would suggest that the reason some situations are awkward is because we aren't aware of why they are awkward. The same can be said of stress or, on the other end of the spectrum, beauty.
It is only after it happens that we look back and realize the factors contributing to awkwardness. I'd suggest that if you could gain this sort of awareness during moments of awkwardness than we automatically regain control of the situation on a conceptual level. I do this myself often and I know other people who will be reading this do it too. It has the potential to be pretty funny if you start manipulating and exploiting social norms of interaction.
For example, in the story Jay gave us, you are placed in a situation with John and Vladamir that they have been in countless times. They are going to act in the same way they've acted 1000's of times before. You can change that, however, based on your side of the conversation. They would likely try really hard to continue with the 'question parade' and stay as a passenger on the train of normality, but it much funnier for you if you try and derail this train. It doesn't mean being a jerk and not talking to them, its much more playful than that. This is, of course, easier said than done because you have to first gain an awareness of the rigidity and stupidity of modern social norms and thereby elevate yourself beyond them. It helps to realize how funny so much of what you encounter in a day really is.
Again, easier said than done. Its defintiely possible and there are endless opportunities for practice.
Next time you buy something at a store try and make something distinct about your interaction with the cashier. The routine of buying something at a convenience store or wherever is, in my opinion, a form of institutionalized awkwardness - its awkward but you don't feel it as such since it is so routine. If you do something a little different than it is surprisingly liberating. From liberation comes humour, or from humour comes liberation. One of the two . . . or maybe both.
ross.concepts.inc.
While reading the concept of awkwardness it lead me to ponder for the next several hours on solutions to the problem. This would in turn lead to a clever comment on the subject and possible a solution, but instead I was lead into what I believe is the single most awkward setting known to humans that occurs on a regular basis. I live exclusively in residence in a building consisting of 11 floors. Living on the 8th floor, on average I may ride the elevator anywhere up to 8-10 times a day. If we were to multiply this number by the number of students who reside above the “stair walking floors” (SWF) which I conclude anyone who lives on the 4th floor or higher range, would be approximately be 2277. This is the number of times the elevator must be used to match the capacity rate of the building. Since there are currently 2 elevators this number may be halved to 1138.5 or simply 1139. The elevator does not actually travel 1139 this is the theoretical yield due to the occurrence of “elevator pooling” (EP). Within EP lies the problem of awkwardness. The level of awkwardness can be determined by an exponential graph with an equation of *Awkwardness = (# of people)/ (level of friendship) +/- (# of floors* the awkwardness decreases in linear regression as the number of people on the elevator decrease, the level of friendship increase, and is directly proportional to the number of floors traveled. The highest level of awkwardness would consist of a high number of people who are EPing together who have never met and who do not live on the same floors therefore increasing time spent together on the elevator raising the level of awkwardness. The most common phrases on the elevator consist of “GOING UP”, “GOING DOWN”, “I’M HAPPY I DON”T HAVE TO USE THE STAIRS” and many more. These questions may all be answered in a “yes” fashion thereby continuing awkwardness. To decrease EP and awkwardness I suggest traveling with close knit floor friends, if not possible use the stairs, or travel during non congested elevator times avoid the before class rush and go to class early, and if all else fails pull the fire alarm ensuring that all students have to use the stairs.
You can't buy fletches at Wal-mart.
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