Flicking my ingrowing hair

The urge

My penchant for making small talk leading to interesting conversations and possible friendships is one I enjoy very much, but it does not always work out like that. There are times I have spoken out of turn creating avoidable embarrassment or out of certain curiosity or enthusiasm, put my foot right in it, I might well sink into the quagmire of mortification.

Nature itself can be cruel in the joke she plays on us. I saw a man the other day who seemed to have patterns of intriguing amusement shaped at the back of his head as if a barber had created designs that looked like two big eyes sitting on the edges of a maple leaf-looking representation.

The purge

In my amusement, I said to him, those look like eyes, to which he responded, alopecia. All I could say was, “Forgive me.”, even as I upbraided myself for being too forward and probably not observant enough. Then who would have thought the loss of hair would come in such uniformity as to look like it was designed rather than a natural thing?

Then hair has its many stories between those who want it to grow in some places they do not need it to appear and those who cannot grow it for the want of trying, out of loss or what nature intended.

The scourge

The many jokes made of how your hair is cut or shaped, the malevolence of the Pọmbé haircut that took an inch off all the sides, it seemed you have a rag placed on your head, or when it was all taken off and I was called Jagoo at school. Why my dad allowed that to happen still escapes me.

Now, that I have male pattern baldness, another side of ribbing comes into play. Yes, this time, I was supposedly flicking my ingrowing hair. Revenge is a dish best served cold; I am waiting the table of that cool customer.

Set a watch before my mouth

In the search for a conversation

I was considering the other day how my ease in making conversation through small talk, witticisms, and self-deprecation presents an unguarded moment of saying the wrong things about myself.

In the main, I think I am generally optimistic and tend towards the affirmative than the negative. Yet, you find yourself saying things absentmindedly about what you cannot do, how you cannot see, where you cannot go, or how you suffer.

You find yourself reaffirming what you do not intend and reinforcing the unfortunate for the sake of making conversation. Then again, I cannot suggest I am good about boasting, I would likely be bashful before I break out of the shell of a reserved Englishman and display the exuberance of those across the pond.

Putting a bridle on my tongue

I guess the quest to be seasoned in speech is a discipline as much as it is a longing without losing the ability to strike up a conversation on more wholesome things than the declining of self to express oneself and make a connection. Maybe, I do need some help and where do I get that? Take control of what I say, O LORD, and guard my lips. Psalms 141:3 (NLT)

I know that I have in a determined way rid myself of inflections in speech, mannerisms, and certain usages that I decided could be better expressed, on the harder bits, I might just be less quick to speak so that when I speak, I am speaking well about myself and things.

Off colour small talk

Dissolving strangeness

Sometimes, small talk is a defence mechanism, a way to put you at ease with strangers though there is no clear determination of what topic will come up for discussion. It is at times a case of fleeting opportunity taken advantage of to stop the heart racing in countenance of the unknown.

Where it occurs might also determine how long that encounter will go on for. At a restaurant or on a journey, it might go on for hours, weaving in and out of the insignificant to the gravely important, snippets of personal information inadvertently exchanged in the trade for a sense of the personal, the individual or the unique.

Short and naughty

However, in a lift, the exchange will probably be over before it has started. It requires something catchier like when I stuck my foot in it so much that I literally could not put it out without causing a right old stink. He was already in the lift going doing as I entered on the second floor, he ensuring I had entered for the right direction of travel.

“You don’t live in South Africa, do you?” I asked, observing that he was completely devoid of the tone of tan as you might naturally expect of a Caucasian living in these climes. In my mind, I expected another answer pertaining to him being a foreigner tourist who had just arrived on holiday. Suffice it to say, I had to quit whilst barely ahead, he does live in South Africa, the other question that should have followed indiscreetly was reserved and unspoken as we part ways soon after the lift doors opened.