A Conversation about Talking

          Yesterday, Allyson and I were talking about how people complain so much.  Our conversation began when we were getting on the bus for our 10-minute ride home and by the time we unlocked our apartment door and threw our stuff on the kitchen table, we had come to three conclusions.  1.  The art of complaining is a mastery of clichés.  2.  Complaining is the easiest way to murder conversation.  3.  Complaining involves generous amounts of lying.  That wasn’t exactly how we said it, but in essence, that was what we decided.  Let me explain. 

            1.  Clichés:  Read Facebook statuses to become acquainted with America's most beloved complaints.  “Tired”, “lame,” and my personal favorite/least favorite, “FML - fuck my life” are a good place to start.  Allyson especially enjoys/hates the “if I was in charge of this, it would be so much cooler” scenario.  (For example: “Calculus is so lame.  There’s obviously no point to the quizzes he gives us.  Why don’t we just have one test at the end of the year like a normal class!?”)  These phrases are so versatile, that one could easily keep ongoing Facebook statuses going for a year just based around different variations of these 4 complaints.  For example: “Had and 8 AM class AND dropped my phone in a gutter today.  FML” and “Raining outside.  Lame” are both wonderful takes on a few simple pessimism must-haves.      

            2.  Murder:  Everyone knows the problem with clichés.  The first time you tell your friends a funny story about how bad your day was, and then finish it off with a crisp and satisfactory, “fuck my life,” everyone laughs at your clever use of pop language.  The next time you say it they sympathize with you by letting out a kind-hearted, “awwww..”.  Once you’ve really begun to over use it, they hurry through the conversation with a distracted, “ya, dude.”  After a while you’ll stop getting any reaction at all.  This can lead to problem #3 with complaining: you have to make up your story a little to get the amount of reaction from your audience that you deserve. 

            3.  Liar:  Aside from embellishment, there’s another type of lying involved in complaints.  I’m going to use the word “tired” (as in, “How are you?” “Tired”) for an example.  The problem with tired is that it can partially mean that you are literally fatigued or sleepy, but it often has a meaning in context that says much more.  “I’m tired” can mean, “I’m bored and don’t want to admit it.”  It can mean, “I’m feeling self-conscious about how lame I look right now.”  It can mean, “I’m trying to imply that I was up late partying last night.”  It can mean, “I think I like you more than you like me, so I’m going to seem distant and uninterested.”  Or it can simply mean, “I can’t think of anything to say to you right now, so please go away.”  Sometimes it can be tricky to determine which type of tired is being used, but the good news is that actual tiredness is usually quite easy to detect.  It typically involves lying down, choosing not to do things that one would normally enjoy, and it can sometimes be followed by some sort of actual resting.  (p.s. don’t be fooled by gangsta slouching.  This is when someone sits in a chair with their knees apart and their arms all strewn and relaxed, so that they look really cool.  It is the epitome of faux-tiredness.)

            My point here is not to bash pessimists.  It is in some people’s nature is to be sulky and I respect that, even if I don’t understand it.  What I don’t appreciate is spreading bad-will for no reason, which is why I’m starting an experiment with myself.  I recognize that as much as I hate it, I complain too, so my goal is to stop.  Before I open my mouth to say something negative I need to think, am I saying this because it is constructive or funny or helpful?  Or am I saying it because I want sympathy, or I just can’t think of anything else to say?  Please don’t misinterpret my goals.  I don’t think people should stop talking about bad things.  We can’t fix what is wrong if we don’t talk about it.  What I do think is that many people -- including me -- over indulge in complaining as a way of filling in the blank spaces of our lives with unmemorable little scribbles that prevent us from having to spell out the things that are most important to us, and often, the most difficult to discuss.  

Baby with a Credit Card

The only issues that my roommate and I get really heated about are motorcycles and computers.  Neither of us is particularly computer-oriented (though we do check our Facebooks and use word processing quite frequently) and neither of us ever rides a motorcycle.  I am Mac and she is PC.  She is Harley and I am… anything but Harley.  Regardless, we are fanatically passionate about these products.  She argues that it’s crazy to spend $1000 on a computer when she only needed to spend $600.  I argue that my computer is twice as fast and will last twice as long.  Truthfully, though, I didn’t pick my Mac because of its processing speed.  That was a factor, of course.  But there was something deeper, more instinctual about my decision.  Macs are nostalgic for me.  I remember playing KidPix and Dark Castle on our old Mac, where you had to choose the “365 color” button on games to make them run better.  That is, if they had color.  I used iMovie on my dad’s Mac to edit my first movies.  I watched my sister head off to college with a blue and white MacBook.  I get that comfortable and homey, “fresh from the oven” feeling when I use my laptop that I just don’t get from the PCs at the library.    

            One could argue, of course, that I am simply more comfortable using the applications on a Mac, but what about the Harley debate?  The only time I rode a motorcycle, it was a Honda 50 on the trails behind my house.  The activity ended with me haphazardly driving across a small stream, up onto the banking again and stopping about 3 inches from an ash tree on the other side.  That was the beginning and end of my motorcycle career.  So why the hell do I care that Allyson used to clunk around her high school in a pair of black leather Harley Davidson boots?  The origin of my product preference is again from my childhood.  My dad and brother and uncles all ride motorcycles and I grew up a victim of endless dinnertime conversations about Gas Gas and KTM and Kawasaki and KDX.  Even though I didn’t ride them or know a single thing about them, they became the motorcycles of my childhood.  Likewise, Allyson had an uncle in Mosinee, Wisconsin with a Harley shop and she has fond memories of visiting her family there, and doubtless listening to Harley stories just like I heard Honda stories. 

            These debates got me thinking about other products from my childhood.  I started to wonder, “do I really love the products I love?  Or do I love that the people I love love them?  And is that reason enough to be loyal to a brand?”  My fondest retail memories from childhood were Barbie; Cinnamon Toast Crunch; Klutz books; Dunkin Donuts; and Chanel No. 5, which my grandmother was famous for wearing.  I remember flipping through Tiffany’s catalogues and picking out my engagement rings with my aunts when I was 7, and now, the Tiffany ring given to me by my mom when I turned 16 is one of my most treasured belongings.  My new self-awareness about the products I subconsciously love made me realize how dangerously routine I can be with brand loyalty.  I was surprised at how deeply shocked I was when I discovered that my college roommates used margarine, not Land O’Lakes butter.  Margarine just seemed wrong.  It made me uncomfortable to realize that I was so affected by the margarine that it felt like an ethical issue turning over in my stomach, not an issue of what to spread on my bread.             

            Even while I write, I still can’t help myself from smiling as I think back to Nerf guns and Double Bubble and dinner at the Olive Garden.  Of course, it was what I brought to these products, not the items themselves that make me so nostalgic.  If the job of a brand is to make you happy, then clearly all of the above have succeeded.  The issue is not that I still consider myself a PBS kid and an American Girl, it’s that the commercial decisions I made in the 3^rd grade are still affecting the products I value the most today. 

            When I asked Allyson to describe those old Harley boots to me, she couldn’t stop talking about how chunky and horrible they were, but when she finished her description she paused and said, “man, I love those boots.”