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Beware the Social Skeet Shooter

It started happening again last night. We were over in Cambridge, MA at a social gathering to recognize a college president’s work. There I was with my wife, Angela, at the garden party. There were about two people out of the forty or so gathered that we knew and those included the President of the college and the Director of Development. The rest of the gathering included a sprinkling of recent college graduates, undoubtedly invited for some light seasoning and the trustees, the elder set, oh and the benefactors served up for the main course.

It was while conversing with some of the benefactors, that it happened. There I was standing opposite this lady of 60 who after getting her bearings--that is, who I was, what stock I was from, what my line of work was and why I was here—proceeded to insert the picture of her life as a busy banker, as a friend of Bob Champion, the Bob Champion who the movie was about. Naturally she knew him while she was in England selecting a thoroughbred, and, wouldn’t you know it, they had made a movie about him…so what was it I did again…? I gave her the bait she wanted, well, sort of, as my stock line for the evening was that I was a recovering graduate student. As I said this, she immediately cut me off, eyes fluttering condescendingly and started back in on recounting her illustrious past; and I had that image take over my mind. A little video started. One that has gotten all too familiar when I find myself bored stiff at these type of events. No matter how I tell myself to focus, to be respectful and listen to what others are saying, people like this force me to see the image of an old vinyl 45 which I am dusting off. It has no song title but rather my interlocutor’s name emblazoned on it and where there are normally tracks I see titles such as Me and Bob Champion or My life on the Board of Directors at a Frightfully Important Financial Institution, or Why I like Talking about Myself at Social Events, etc...

It is at this point as I am staring at my interlocutor and she is droning on yet looking at my eyes for cues that I am listening, yes at this point that I see myself in the video blowing dust of her life’s 45, tossing it into the air and then firing at it with 12 bore shot gun: bang! All the pieces of the 45, or my interlocutor’s life, come raining down in shards of little shiny black plastic like car tire blowing out. Then I feel an uncomfortable mixed feeling of mischievous gratification, almost sated satisfaction and tingles of guilt. For here she is pouring her life out to me, or as she wants me to see it, and here I am shooting it to pieces. Don’t you ever find that? After a while, after a lot of social gatherings you start to build up a collection of 45s? Then at the next gathering you are at a new face approaches you, but shortly after the handshake there you are again dusting off that 45. Yep, you find yourself thinking, I have that one down, madam.

I suppose I shouldn’t be embarrassed by this but naturally it does contravene the social etiquette with which I was raised. I mean, we are taught to respect our elders, especially those of higher social standing. We are taught to show our interest in them, put on our public face. Yet beneath the surface maybe we are all skeet shooting in these interactions. Think back to the last social gathering you were at, talking to someone you had never met before who is talking to you about nothing remotely interesting. You probably said to yourself, yep I know where you are going with that Banker Bob, or so, you are one of these type of people…Then you did it; you threw the chapters of their lives in the air and shot them to pieces. But what does it say about our society if we are all, well, social skeet shooters? We are all feigning to listen to each other and then blowing each other’s lives up while we wait our turn to paint our own fairy tale life? Maybe, I shouldn’t be ashamed about social skeet shooting. After all it is a lot safer than how our Vice President dispatches with those who bore him on a hunt.