Social Primer

SP has been thinking a lot lately about social relationships and how we deal with people when things aren’t so rosy, and civility is hard to come by. Yes, in the ideal world we are shiny happy people but that notion is just that, an ideal that we may strive for but a reality we often fall short of.  How do we deal with the friends and acquaintances that annoy us, are rude or ridiculous or just plain tick us off? How do we remain above the fray and hold on to fragile civility knowing that to succumb only makes us smaller? I have watched with awe the way my parents have handled the people around them that I know through private conversations they do not hold in the highest esteem. There is a grace and a smile that one presents to the world and it is the true gentleman that doesn’t crack under pressure.  The more I think about this the more I am convinced that these uncomfortable situations are the true test of gentility and to be honest, tests that are easily failed.

As we get older and our social circles shrink, it becomes increasingly more possible that we will come into face-to-face contact with those who have ticked us off.  It is almost as if we return to high school. Think about it. In high school the circle of people you interact with is finite.  Once in college, one has the chance to bounce around to many different groups and we often do. SP spent his university days trying on many friends. Starting in the Greek system, then the neo hippies, then the theater wing, then a dip into raccoon eyes and Punk revival (thank you Green Day) and finally ending up with the English majors, SP was a real man about campus, literally. I like to consider myself a chameleon, able to fit into any situation. In fact, this is such a great quality to cultivate; I will devote an entire post to the subject in the future. Chameleons are in my opinion, better than social butterflies. Butterflies flit in and out whereas chameleons fit right in. Ok, back to the subject at hand.

After the halcyon days of college we enter the so-called real world and our opportunities for ever widening social circles – generally speaking – begin to shrink. It is then that we find ourselves in that finite pool again and it is here that we are faced with the same people as we embark on life’s road trip. How to deal with the fissures in friendships that are part of the natural course of growing up?  There is a great old Irish folk song I heard performed at a dinner party once that says something to the effect of losing the friends we needed to lose. But short of that, it seems to me we have to face the transgressors with a smile and a handshake and let it be. Rising above is probably one of the hardest things to do, but do we must. Plus who wants to experience all that unpleasantness? A civil hello beats a snarky retort or an angry glare or to that end, avoidance. It is right. It is civil. And it is the medicine we have to take, spoonful of sugar notwithstanding. Or my own personal sugar, a stiff glass of scotch.

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