rowyn

I am not always as good at not engaging, but I am definitely good at turning things into funny stories afterwards. (Let me tell you the story of Train Guy . . . or That Other Train Guy . . .) It doesn't always make the experience better (well, sometimes it does. It brings in more meta-awareness: 'I am sitting here lying through my teeth to a stranger on the bus about how yes, my parents are totally preachers and I'm following in the family footsteps, because this stranger on the bus thinks I'm reading Biblical commentary and it's easier to lie than explain that this is a creepy sci-fi novel and I'm really glad this isn't one of the pages with an unconventional sex scene . . .' (True story. More-or-less.) So I can recognize the humor in the situation even while it's happening. And sometimes (That Other Train Guy) the anticipation of, 'I cannot WAIT to tell people about this' will improve the overall experience, because I'm anticipating the pleasure of the retelling. And then there are times (Train Guy) where even the knowledge that this will be an excellent story is insufficient to counteract the force of 'Oh gosh oh gosh why did I make eye contact, why won't he stop talking, I could get off the train but if I didn't make it into the next car I'd have to wait until the next Braintree train which'll be 20 minutes or so and why don't I keep headphones in my bag all the time . . .' But being able to turn it into a story that makes people laugh so hard they cry with the humor of shared awkwardness does take some of the sting out of it.

I think that I was always good at this, but it's a skill I really honed during my year in Zambia. A lot of things were strange and confusing and stressful and sometimes scary, and being able to turn them into funny stories was definitely one of my coping mechanisms.