You can’t be serious

I’m a diffuser. A diplomat. According to some diagnostics I did at work, a harmoniser. It’s a real strength of mine, and it’s often commented on both personally and professionally. I always seek understanding, even if it’s only on a fraction of the issue, to find common ground. It’s a large part of my professional persona, and a skill I am called upon to use on a daily basis. It comes in handy with stakeholders, colleagues and clients who are unhappy, feel affronted or just plain disagree. I can usually find some commonality, articulate my position well enough to influence a change of mind, or seek sufficient understanding to change mine. I’m not conflict avoidant, certainly not professionally, but I appreciate conflict is draining and unproductive most of the time, and it’s in everyone’s interests to head it off before it begins.

I’m also a joker. I keep things light-hearted where I can, and I find humour often diffuses conflict very effectively. I think my sense of humour is one of the best things about me, and I try to keep it on me at all times. Work can be so tedious if it’s always serious. I also have quite a dark sense of humour, which comes in handy when I am dealing with quite serious and sensitive situations.

I still volunteer for a charity, but I used to train their new volunteers for them as well, when I had more free time. It’s a volunteering role that involves talking to lonely and isolated older people, and giving them regular contact and conversation. One of the topics I covered in this training, and delivered at least once a week for many, many months, was sentiment. Every week I lead a conversation with a group of volunteers about active listening, and how, if your older person expressed something serious or heartfelt, to not side step sentiment with humour. That struck a chord with me, both as I was taught it, and as I taught it, because I recognised myself in that statement.

Often when there is an emotional weight attached to words, there is tension. Most of us feel the need to lighten the mood, break the tension and I’m doing so, unwittingly cheapen the moment, or dismiss what is being said. We don’t like to see people sad, or upset and try to make them smile.

I’m guilty of it, labouring under the misled belief that if I can make light of a situation, so can the other person. But they’re living through it, and it’s not that simple. They will smile or laugh to let me off the hook, and carry that tension as they were before, no lighter for opening up to me.

I’m writing this because all of my previous posts are written in my default style, comprising some quite serious issues in a humorous, informal manner. My favourite conversational partner, who often inspires or helps crystallise many of my writings over the years, pointed out that I didn’t need to joke in my serious writings, that is was self-deprecating.

I got to thinking, because I knew I had a long train journey ahead, and I love to write while I travel. I recalled a previous train journey I had made, several years ago when I was quite a bit younger. I must have been at university because I was both on a train to the city I studied in, and reading a book about Egyptian hieroglyphs. I remember a man on that train, possibly drunk but certainly overly confident, taking an interest in me and my book. I wanted nothing to do with him. I was young, travelling alone, and I wanted to read my book in peace. He’d instigated conversation around where I was travelling, and as I tried to close him down with monosyllabic responses, he changed tactics and started on the topic of my book I was clutching.

It was pleasant enough at first, asking about my interest in the topic and why I was reading it, but quickly turned to tension when he wasn’t getting the willing conversation from me he expected. He started to try and challenge my knowledge on the topic and then the value of the subject, to get a rise out of me. In his mind I guess any response was better than no response. This is where my affiliative nature kicked in, partially driven by my concern that he was one wrong response away from getting nasty, or physical, and partly to try and diffuse the tension he was creating. I started to acquiesce that hieroglyphs probably weren’t going to be that useful to me, no I know no one writes it/speaks it these days, no it’s not going to help me order a beer in a bar in Benidorm. I mollified this man child for the remaining 30 minutes of the journey, because not doing so was the lesser of two evils, alone with him on a quiet train, in the dark, with no one waiting for me at the station. I made a joke that I didn’t know my own phone number when he asked if I wanted to continue the conversation when my train arrived. I was concerned he would follow me if I flat out refused, so I took his number down, scribbled on a page of my book.

As soon as I’d got out of the station I tore the page out and threw it in a bin. I made a last minute decision to take a taxi, and could only afford to go halfway to my university halls, but figured that was still some safe distance between me and this man, if he had slipped off the train behind me.

So I wonder how much of apparent self-deprecation when I write is actually self-defence. I am not yet comfortable creating tension and letting the other person handle it for themselves, because that’s a dangerous thing to do, based on my experience. Even writing anonymously online opens me up to issues. I can take critique and criticism of my writing and my stance on things, but I fear personal attack because of them. I have learned, as has every woman I know, to diminish myself where tension is created to stay safe. I had no idea this was subconsciously seeping into my writing and I hadn’t paused to examine this. I’m not sure it’s self-deprecation so much as gender-deprecation. Outspoken women often become the victims of hate crime and online abuse and so I temper the edges of my words. How strange that I still feel like a teenager alone on a train with an over familiar carriage mate when I speak my truth and my experience.

So here it is, no joking, no puns, no comic imagery littered through my story, a serious post with serious intent. I enjoy writing informally and letting my personality come through with humour, and I don’t intend to stop. But I am promising myself that when I have something serious to say, I will say it seriously.