I hope the afterlife is full of only tolerable phonies.
I hang out with phonies. Not because I have to, like, professionally or anything. And not that I don’t think that I probably qualify as one too. More like, I do it because there’s no other choice. And that the idea of genuineness is something they beat out of me a long time ago. But maybe, I guess, I’m trying to win something back on that score. Like, balance out the idea that we all are fragmented strangers against the possibility that, hey, you know, like maybe there’s a self or a person or a soul that we all have and we might—after a few drinks, of course—be able to somehow get a snapshot of.
So for example, we stand around with our drinks, mopping our sweaty brows with cocktail napkins and we “ha ha” at each other’s jokes and are, in general, phony. “Rectum, damn near—whatever,” kind of bullshit. The question one has to ask, in those kinds of circumstances is, well, like, is there any other choice?
Maybe what I want to say has something to do with the weakness of the word—phony—for describing the particular desperation that one feels when trying to have a conversation with a new person. If phoniness means, like, say, conventionality, then guilty as charged. Who ever thought at the outset of their real social lives—and I’m here talking about post-sandbox, you know, like when you talk about things other than whether or not girls are icky (because, let’s face it, they always are)—that one would have so many conversations about the weather? That it could be so understandably and acceptably boring and mundane, and yet it would be the go-to for any introductory conversation after you have chewed on undergraduate institutions and favorite television shows. Or maybe whether or not you like the particular brand of cured meats or red wine that you’re drinking.
And, like, who would have thought that the best and worst, the longest-lasting and the shortest-lived friendships all begin with a basic “Where are you from? No kidding, I had a cousin who blah blah there” and whatever.
Has anyone ever been deeply, ontologically, like at-the-level-of-soul interested in the answer to that particular question? The premise? Sorry, but it’s entirely phony. As in, we are not interested in the answer. We ask it like no other kind of question. It is not information seeking as far as it alleviates our nerves while we stand there sweating and hoping someone else will come over to talk.
We might as well say, “I understand conversational conventions. Let us proceed.”
I don’t care where you come from or what kind of stupid candy you ate at the State Fair. I want to know you, and I want you (at least initially) to not think that I want to know you. Because that right there, I think, is like, maybe the heart of the difficulty that everyone has with conversation. This desperation for wanting to know something essential at the heart of a person, like, maybe what they think about on the walk home from work, or suddenly pop out of bed at night wondering. Some kind of shared anxiety that, I think, you know, like circulates on the basic question of “Will I ever be sufficient?” Or maybe even, like, to convey something effortlessly essential about ourselves that will make us seem vulnerable yet dealing with it. Or something like that.
So we approach basically any new conversation with hope that someone will say, “Yes! Me Too” Or maybe even, a calm reassuring hand on the wrist and a “Yes. I understand.” But we can eat olives and cheese or maybe even tempura if it’s a really good cocktail party, and we’ll talk about Westchester County, New York, or Waukeegan, Wisconsin and talk about caramel candies there, and how we maybe both knew Ben Mitchell who went to Princeton or something.
Would it be great to skip the convention and get right to the meaty stuff? The stuff that underlays the phony pretense about caring about Ben? Maybe. Imagine walking up to any stranger and saying:
Ahem, “I understand that we don’t care where we are from. I’m really more interested in your opinion on whether or not, when we die, there will prove to have been some purpose. And if, once we’re laid out on a slab, we’ll really care anyway? I’m deeply interested in your opinion on the singing group Vampire Weekend because I think they hit on something frivolous about our contemporary moment, and I want to know your favorite sexual position because, let’s face it, I wouldn’t have come over here across the room past the pastries if it weren’t for the fact that I think you’re totally hot. And damn, can you believe how cold it is?”
