A social animal

Talking to people is certainly a challenging and stressful task if you are not full of shit or mightily convinced of your own self worth. In several previous lessons we discussed some aspects of interactions with the sex that is opposite to my sex and often referred to as 'female', sometimes as 'she' and when they aren't listening but your friends are and you think you're bloody funny don't you, as 'washing-machine'. However we only scratched the filthy surface of a vast subject, bloated with meaningless research and psychological torment.

We communicate with each other in myriad ways and for mostly useless reasons. While more advanced mammals' interactions are ultimately about mating rights and food, homo saps have counter intuitively evolved highly complex ways of making things difficult for themselves, such as the emotion guilt, the works of Shakespeare and a dispute generating mechanism called 'ethics'. This is a fascinating subject and is worthy of the next twenty minutes before my spelling mistake rate soars and I need to go to bed.

Let's simulate some typical social engagements where one might come across another member of our feeble and vacillating species.

A: At the urinals.

Person 1: Alright mate?

Person 2: I was.

Pause.

Person 2: Look, just keep your hands to yourself thanks.


B: A sunny bay in the Caribbean.

CIA operative 1: Give us names, damnit!

Innocent man that strangely no other country wants to accept: Ha, infidel! You cannot make me speak!

CIA operative 1: That's what you think!

CIA operative 2: No, actually he's right.


C: A street in Paris

Marcher 1: Grève!

Marcher 2: Grève!

Marcher 3: Baguettes!

Marcher 4: Grève!

And so on.

Clearly what all these exchanges have in common is their complete lack of useful information exchange and their sound basis in my mind. Without any scientific reason or rational justification whatsoever, and hence in line with the overwhelming majority of human decision making processes, we may draw the conclusion that like pandas, humans are an evolutionary dead-end, but unlike pandas they are not cute.

'First contact' is exceptional in that during this process humans exceed their usual operating parameters and act rationally, by focusing on hierarchy, mating rights and food. For example, at socials gatherings known as parties, when two men, drawn from the same level in the social hierarchy and who don't know each other meet, they will introduce themselves as follows;

Person 1: Hi, we haven't met, my name's Dick.

Person 2: Hi Dick, nice to meet you, I'm Dick.

Neither of the men actually say "Dick" of course but this is the message received, because both men are not known to each other and possible rivals. However if they turn out to share a respected mutual friend, or are both currently satisfied with their mating arrangements, then they may consider a mutually beneficial alliance for e.g. territorial defense or fishing trips and eventually the actual learning of each other's names. There are, as always, exceptions to this general picture, particularly if one or both of the participants feature unusual characteristics, as in

Person 1: Hi, we haven't met, my name's Halitosis.

Person 2: Hi Halitosis, nice to meet you, I'm Crooked Teeth.

When two women meet a similar exchange occurs with minor alterations:

Person 1: Hi, we haven't met, my name's Fantastically Beautiful and I Know It.

Person 2: Hi Bitch, nice to meet you, I'm Flat Chest.

When members of the opposite sex meet they follow a complex dynamic depending on whether one or both is interested in mating. The participants either attempt to establish or indicate their status with regards to mating without actually openly stating it. This process can be long and drawn out, or extremely brief if the antagonist is ugly. Some more advanced members of the species and particularly those who form same sex relationships have developed cunning systems of self decoration to display their mating status, based on key chains, handkerchiefs and t-shirts with explicit words on them.

Ok, that's quite enough of that.