God's Debris

Relationships

The old man rocked some more and smiled at me. “You’re alone much of the time.”

He was right. I enjoyed being alone. I had friends, but I was always happy to get back home.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Your pupils widen when I talk about ideas.”

“They do?”

“There are two types of people in the world, my young friend. One type is people-oriented. When they make conversation, it is about people—what people are doing, what someone said, how someone feels. The other group is idea-oriented. When they make conversation, they talk about ideas and concepts and objects.”

“I must be an idea person.”

“Yes. And it causes trouble in your personal life but you don’t realize how.”

“That’s rather presumptuous of you. What makes you think I have trouble in my personal life?” I had to admit he was right. Everyone has an imperfect personal life, but for me that imperfection was almost a defining principle.

He continued, “Idea people like you are boring, even to other idea people.”

“Hey, I’m insulted,” I said, not really feeling so. “I will admit I’m not the life of any party. Whenever I try to inject something interesting into a conversation everyone gets quiet until someone changes the topic. I think I’m pretty interesting but no one else does. All of the popular people seem to babble about nothing, but I usually have something interesting to say. You’d think people would like that.”

“Actually, the popular people only seem to be babbling,” he countered. “In fact, they talk about a topic that everyone cares about; they talk about people. When a person talks about people, it is personal to everyone who listens. You will automatically relate the story to yourself, thinking how you would react in that person’s situation, how your life has parallels. On the other hand, if you tell a story about a new type of tool you found at the hardware store, no one can relate to the tool on a personal level. It is just an object, no matter how useful or novel.”

“Okay, so how do I become more interesting?”

“If I gave you advice, would you follow it?”

“Maybe. It depends on the advice.”

“No, you wouldn’t follow my advice. No one has ever followed the advice of another person.”

“Now you’re just being disagreeable,” I said. “Obviously people follow advice all the time. That’s not a delusion.”

“People think they follow advice but they don’t. Humans are only capable of receiving information. They create their own advice. If you seek to influence someone, don’t waste time giving advice. You can change only what people know, not what they do.”

“Okay then. Can you give me some information that would help my personal life?”

“Perhaps,” he said, clenching his red plaid blanket tighter around his tiny body. “What topic interests you more than any other?”

“Myself, I guess,” I confessed.

“Yes, that is the essence of being human. Any person you meet at a party will be interested in his own life above all other topics. Your awkward silences can be solved by asking simple questions about the person’s life.”

“That would be totally phony,” I said. “First of all, it would be like interrogating him. Secondly, I couldn’t possibly pretend to be interested in the answers. If he turns out to be some shoe salesman living with his mother in Albany, my eyes will glaze over.”

“It would seem phony to you while you asked the questions, but it would not seem that way to the stranger. To him it is an unexpected gift, an opportunity to enjoy one of life’s greatest pleasures: talking about oneself. He would become more animated and he would instantly begin to like you. You would seem to be a brilliant and talented conversationalist, even if your only contribution was asking questions and listening. And you would have solved the stranger’s fear of an awkward silence. For that he will be grateful.”

“That solves the stranger’s problem, but I have to listen to this guy drone on about himself. The cure is worse than the disease.”

“Your questions to the stranger are only the starting points. From there you can steer him toward the thing you care about most—yourself.”

“Wouldn’t he want to talk about himself instead of me?”

“When you find out how others deal with their situations it is automatically relevant to you,” he said. “There will always be parallels in your life. Find out what you and he have in common, then ask how he likes it, how he deals with it, and if he has any clever solutions for it. Perhaps you both have long commutes, or you both have mothers who call too often or you both ski. Find that point of common interest and you will both be talking about yourself to the delight of the other.”

“What about sharing my opinions on important things?” I asked. “I’m always getting into debates with people. It seems like I always have a more thought-out view of things and I feel like I have a responsibility to set people straight. Sometimes, though, I wish I could just shut up. But when you hear the crazy views that some people have— actually, most people—how can you just let it slide?”

“Have you ever been in traffic behind someone who doesn’t move when the light turns green, so you honk your horn, then you realize the car is stalled and there is nothing the driver could have done?”

“Yeah, I’ve honked. It’s embarrassing,” I said.

“Most disagreements are like my example. Two people have different information, but they think the root of their disagreement is that the other person has bad judgment or bad manners or bad values. In fact, most people would share your opinions if they had the same information. If you spend your time arguing about the faultiness of other people’s opinions, you waste your time and theirs. The only thing than can be useful is examining the differences in your assumptions and adding to each other’s information. Sometimes that is enough to make viewpoints converge over time.”

“Hey, if you can teach me to get along with women, I could sure use that.”

“I can tell you some things.”

“I’ll take whatever help I can get.”

“Women believe that men are, in a sense, defective versions of women,” he began. “Men believe that women are defective versions of men. Both genders are trapped in a delusion that their personal viewpoints are universal. That viewpoint—that each gender is a defective version of the other—is the root of all misunderstandings.”

“How does that help me?” I asked.

“Women define themselves by their relationships and men define themselves by whom they are helping. Women believe value is created by sacrifice. If you are willing to give up your favorite activities to be with her, she will trust you. If being with her is too easy for you, she will not trust you. You can accomplish your sacrifices symbolically at first, by leaving work early to buy flowers, canceling your softball game to make a date, that sort of thing.”

“Why does it seem like the rich and famous guys get all the women?” I asked.

“Partly because the rich and famous are capable of making larger sacrifices. The average man might be sacrificing a night of television to be with a woman. The rich and famous man could be sacrificing a week in Tahiti. There is much to be said about the attraction of power and confidence exuded by a rich and powerful man, but capacity for sacrifice is the most important thing.”

“What do men value?” I asked.

“Men believe value is created by accomplishment, and they have objectives for the women in their lives. If a woman meets the objectives, he assumes she loves him. If she fails to meet the objectives, he will assume she does not love him. The man assumes that if the woman loved him she would have tried harder and he always believes his objectives for her are reasonable.”

“What objectives?”

“The objectives are different for each man. Men rarely share these objectives because doing so is a recipe for disaster. No woman would tolerate being given a set of goals.”

“So what should a guy do if the woman in his life doesn’t meet these secret objectives? How can he get her to change?”

“He can’t,” he replied. “People don’t change to meet the objectives of other people. Men can be molded in small ways—clothing and haircuts and manners—because those things are not important to most men. Women can’t be changed at all.”

“I’m not hearing anything helpful here.”

“The best you can hope for in a relationship is to find someone whose flaws are the sort you don’t mind. It is futile to look for someone who has no flaws, or someone who is capable of significant change; that sort of person exists only in our imaginations.”

“Let’s say I find the person whose flaws I don’t mind,” I said. “The hard part is keeping her. I haven’t had much luck in that department.”

“A woman needs to be told that you would sacrifice anything for her. A man needs to be told he is being useful. When the man or woman strays from that formula, the other loses trust. When trust is lost, communication falls apart.”

“I don’t think you need to trust someone to communicate. I can talk to someone I distrust as easily as someone I trust.”

“Without trust, you can communicate only trivial things. If you try to communicate something important without a foundation of trust, you will be suspected of having a secret agenda. Your words will be analyzed for hidden meaning and your simple message will be clouded by suspicions.”

“I guess I can see that. How can I be more trusted?”

“Lie.”

“Now you’re kidding, right?” I asked.

“You should lie about your talents and accomplishments, describing your victories in dismissive terms as if they were the result of luck. And you should exaggerate your flaws.”

“Why in the world would I want to tell people I was a failure and an idiot? Isn’t it better to be honest?”

“Honesty is like food. Both are necessary, but too much of either creates discomfort. When you downplay your accomplishments, you make people feel better about their own accomplishments. It is dishonest, but it is kind.”

“This is good stuff. What other tips do you have?”

“You think casual conversation is a waste of time.”

“Sure, unless I have something to say. I don’t know how people can blab about nothing.”

“Your problem is that you view conversation as a way to exchange information,” he said.

“That’s what it is,” I said, thinking I was pointing out the obvious.

“Conversation is more than the sum of the words. It is also a way of signaling the importance of another person by showing your willingness to give that person your rarest resource: time. It is a way of conveying respect. Conversation reminds us that we are part of a greater whole, connected in some way that transcends duty or bloodline or commerce. Conversation can be many things, but it can never be useless.”

For the next few hours the old man revealed more of his ingredients for successful social living. Express gratitude. Give more than is expected. Speak optimistically. Touch people. Remember names. Don’t confuse flexibility with weakness. Don’t judge people by their mistakes; rather, judge them by how they respond to their mistakes. Remember that your physical appearance is for the benefit of others. Attend to your own basic needs first; otherwise you will not be useful to anyone else.

I didn’t know if I could incorporate his ingredients into my life, but it seemed possible.