NIGHTGOWNS AND PALANQUINS
On the joys of small talk, and a proposed exchange program for misanthropists
Whenever I reluctantly admit to someone that I’m a writer, their next question is inevitably along the lines of, “What kind of stuff do you write?” I know this in theory, but in reality the question always takes me by surprise. It’s like when someone asks what I’ve been up to lately and the only response I can muster is “… nothing,” as if I’ve been staring at a wall for the last 18 weeks of my life. Or maybe I’ll say something unintentionally enigmatic, like, “I’ve been having wild adventures in my mind.” Which really just means I’ve been writing, or thinking about writing. Which takes us back to the beginning of my problem. Which is that I don’t know how to make normal conversation like an actual human being.
When I was younger and cared more what people thought of me, I’d prepare answers for the difficult questions I might get asked, such as “How are you?” I read somewhere that it’s good to give lots of honest details in conversation, so I’d rehearse saying things like, “I’m doing well, thank you. I woke myself up this morning saying WOOF!” (This really happened, just the other day.)
So you might be surprised to learn that I’m actually completely brilliant at small talk. I love small talk, in fact. Of course I can do the weather chat – that comes naturally, as a British person. “Lovely August day, isn’t it?” I’ll laugh, as I’m huddled beneath an umbrella while cars speed through puddles and drench my lower legs with gutter water. “Meant to turn nice later,” I’ll say. And, “If it was sunny all the time, we’d complain about that, too!”
I’m also one of those people who’s likely to make a comment or crack a joke at you if you’re doing anything even remotely noteworthy, such as carrying a large-ish box, opening a door, or walking a dog. If you’re picking up your dog’s poop, for example, I’ll say something like, “Ah, the glamorous side of dog ownership!” Because I want to support your efforts, even if it means yelling it across a busy street while you’re scrabbling, poo bag in hand, for the awkward bits of poop your dog has kindly deposited in several different places during its hunched butt toddle poop tour around the pavement.
What I really love about small talk is that it so rarely is. Small, I mean. This morning, for example, I was walking a tiny Chihuahua when a woman appeared before me in her nightie (the woman’s nightie, that is, not the Chihuahua’s) and said, “Is that a dog?”
“Well she thinks she’s a dog,” I replied. “But I’m not sure she’s big enough to qualify.”
“I thought it was one of mine got out,” the woman said. “That’s why I’ve run out in my nightie. Bit embarrassing.”
“Not at all,” I said. “I was just thinking what a nice nightie it is. I like a nightie myself.”
“Always sleep in a nightie,” she agreed. “Nice and breezy, what with the hot flushes.”
And just like that, I’m having a conversation with Nightie Lady about the unfair sexism perpetrated upon women by biology, and recommending that she tries magnesium to help with the palpitations.
The other day I had a longish chat with a man who noted that I was carrying the tiny Chihuahua up a hill while attempting to restrain an excitable oversized Labrador with my free hand. It was certainly a comical sight which I myself would have commented upon, had it been the other way around. “That’s an odd pair,” the man said. I agreed (assuming he was talking about the dogs) and noted that I was considering designing a palanquin that could be harnessed to the big dog so he could carry the little one around, which he agreed was a genius idea. The man agreed, that is. I’m not sure what the dog thought about it.
This matter dispensed with, we turned our conversation to the hill itself. It transpired that the man was walking up and down the hill several times a day as part of an effort to lose enough weight to get into his suit for his aunty’s funeral next week. It’s the cakes that trouble him, he admitted. He’s become quite a good baker since he retired. “Oh look,” he said then, taking a wild tangent, “that’s a horse chestnut tree, that is. Where did that come from?” He tells me he’s something of a tree nerd and we talk about how it’s good that there are still people who bother about trees and aren’t just goggle-eyed on their phones all the time.
This fondness for going outside and talking to people makes me very uncool by modern standards. There’s even an acronym to describe our fashionable misanthropy – JOMO: the joy of missing out. It’s not just going outside that bothers people, though. Visitors coming to your home? Unacceptable. The phone rings and you don’t know who it is? Don’t answer. My God, it could be anyone!
But it’s not all doom and gloom. These unsociable people may be the perfect candidates for a new life in Afghanistan, where a recent law has decreed women must not speak in public, whether they want to or not. No going to work or school, no singing, no showing your face, and now you can’t even have a chat with your neighbours in case a taliban comes along and beheads you.
Talk about JOMO. This is the ultimate detox from modern society. Maybe an exchange program could be set up between people who post on social media about how much they wish they could stay in bed forever and never speak to anyone ever again, and Afghan women who would quite like to chat about the weather or their neighbour’s mum’s rhododendrons without risking a public flogging.
I do know this isn’t really a joking matter. It’s more the kind of thing that’s so awful you don’t quite know what say about it. Then again, it is kind of funny that people in this country are so quick to denounce our freedoms, to complain about having too much choice, too much small talk, too many girls going out on a Friday night in boob tubes without taking a warm coat, and so on.
Personally, I’ve always been quite gleeful about the fact that I can go outside and talk to people and wear what I want and walk home by myself late at night, despite being in possession of a vagina, because even though it’s not entirely safe, it’s safe enough. (Walking home, that is. The vagina may be somewhat dangersome.) And I positively glory in the fact that I have the right to take those risks.
What has brought on this completely insane radical feminist zeal, I hear you ask? Well, I suspect it’s to do with the fact that at the time of writing, I’m staying in Emily Wilding Davison’s aunty’s house. And she was a right bigmouth, wasn’t she? Emily, that is. I’m not sure about the aunty. To be honest, there are a lot of paintings of horses in the house, which strikes me as a teeny bit insensitive. Or maybe her relatives had just about had enough of her by the time the horse turned up. “Oh do shut up, Emily,” I imagine them saying. “Stop banging on about women’s rights, will you, and let me stare at this wall for nine hours thinking about how much I hate people.”
How times change.
No you bloody well can’t sit here and chat. I’m too busy inventing the boob tube.
Palanquin is the kind of word that should have a greater meaning than the one we’ve assigned it. It’s also a very pretty word.
I am also a master at small talk although it is of the Dad-varietal. I marvel at new construction and comment on babies in strollers, scoff at others who haven’t adequately secured items to their car, and joke with other dads I see. My wife and children always say “you’re such a dad” and they mean it as a tease. Little do they know that their child’s makes me happy because I fucking love being a dad and the social reinforcement is only a good reminder of one of the high points of my life.
As you’ve written so engagingly, being outside and talking to people is just lovely. It reminds us of our shared humanity in a world that is so often inhumane. Damnit Georgina I came to your Stack for the cheap laughs and aureole jokes, not introspection and self-reflection! But you are one of my favorite newsletters and I adore my Friday mornings when I get a new work from you.
You’re fast becoming my favourite Substack.
Talking of dog poo, you brought it up, when I was young and walking the dogs with my mum, as our dog was shivering out a particularly tricky one, a woman walked past and said “I hope you’re going to pick that up”. My mum responded “why, do you want it?”.