Moving Things Along

So there you are, conversing away, when things hit a bottleneck.

Girl: "Did you just say that you think Siew Hua is prettier than me?"

Boy: "Uh ... I mean, different lah."

Girl: "But Siew Hua has such a fat neck!"

Boy: "Aiyar ... different lah. As long as your boyfriend thinks you're pretty, can already right?"

Girl: "... you know you're not the first one to say that? Jason said it too. What is *wrong* with you people?"

Awkward pause. Awkward pause continues. Awkward pause about to turn into awkward -

RING RING RING RING RING RING

Girl: "Hello? Oh hiiii, Siew Hua! That's funny, we were just talking about you! Haha ... I'm with Shiyao at the moment. Yah, we're just having coffee. You - oh, you wanted the original version? Okay okay, I'll send it to you once I get home. Okay dear, see you soon! Bye!"

Boy: "Wah lau. That was totally fake lor."

Girl: "OH MY GOD can you believe it she wants ANOTHER favour? I mean, no wonder she has a fat neck, she has such thick skin ..."

Et cetera et cetera.

And so once again, the occurrence of a "thing" - the intervening phone conversation - saves two people: from awkwardness, from ennui, from their own prideful selves.

The above example is, of course, one of particular kismet. But other instances are not difficult to imagine:

* Two women, one pregnant, are arguing. Suddenly, the pregnant one's water breaks. (Ugly Betty)

* Tension at the dining table. Father has just said something to rile mother. Grandmother starts to scoop food into mother's bowl, remarking on how salty the fish is. (Every single fucking Asian family)

* Luke discovers that Vader is his father. Awkwardness (and lots of screaming). Suddenly and very conveniently, he falls into into a Cloud City air shaft. "Boring conversation anyway", maybe. (The Empire Strikes Back)

* Fang Jiayi and Huang Zhizhong are having an argument. Suddenly, Lin Anna rushes in and declares that Pingchun is having a fit! (Taiwan Long Juan Feng)

* Boromir wants the One Ring. Frodo refuses. Suddenly a bunch of Uruk-hai come and kill Boromir. (The Fellowship of the Ring)

* GDI and NOD want to kill each other. But the world is coming to the end, so they cooperate to prevent said end. Very macro-scale example but you get the idea. (Command and Conquer 4)

At bottom, all of these are examples of how people need external events to provide them with an excuse for adopting a particular conciliatory course of action (except for Boromir, poor Boromir). The event gives these people the impetus to say, "Wait, there are things bigger than us, let us get over ourselves", without actually having to say it (or, honestly, even think it).

This principle of "unspoken understanding" works for many other situations as well, some of them largely non-conflict based. The ang-moh with his arm draped over his polygot for the night, steering her amidst banal conversation to a dingy hotel room; the lawyer who cannot bring himself to say anything other than "a certain course of action"; Jeong Ae Ree, confidently taking the arm of her Romanian louse of a companion, safe in her convictions about the exchange of favours. People do not like to have to face up to the pointlessness of their egos; so they invent little dances like these, happy that others also subscribe to the same narcissistic value system.

Were it otherwise. In a certain utopia, one would be able to simply "go and have a conversation somewhere" instead of having to "go for drinks"; one would be able to say goodbye for good without having to "catch up with you sometime"; and one would be able to "spend time with you because I find that I click with you" without having to "also be a really big fan of flower origami". In this utopia, compromises to ego would be a thing of the past.

But no, we persist. We persist in thinking that "things" have a particular hold over us, that we require their permission before we can become big people ourselves; and that un-sordid platitudes, for whatever reason, are worth resorting to despite their inherent obfuscation and disingenuousness. We baulk at the prospect of simply walking up to somebody and apologizing, and we recoil at the mere thought of having to say what we really feel, at any one point in time.

It is a pity. We have risen from the dinosaurs, but our sophistication is wearing us down. Maybe one day a giant comet will hit the earth and we will all have the perfect excuse to get over ourselves, once and for all. Maybe.