Being awkward

I’m happy to say awkward things, to make people feel uncomfortable and to have difficult conversation. It isn’t easy, but it’s important.

Before I go on with that thought, I want to acknowledge that for me, a white, middle class, middle aged, educated woman, there isn’t a lot of risk in being awkward. People might decide I’m not for them, but that’s about it. I don’t risk work, housing, family or my safety by saying awkward things.

My privilege also extends to having the spoons and emotional wellbeing to be awkward, so my lovely friend, if you don’t have the spoons or desire to be awkward, that’s cool. This is me sharing my thoughts not me telling you how to live.

Shall we get back to being awkward?

I’ve had several conversations in the last few weeks when I decided to say the awkward thing.

In one I, gently paraphrased Neil Gaiman to challenge the phrase “it’s PC gone mad” statement that two folk in the conversation had taken up.

In another I explained why I think it’s important to talk about mental health openly, using my own experience as an example.

In all my awkward conversations I’ve not told the other person what to think, I’ve not sought an argument, I’ve simply disagreed and tried to present my view.

Why? Because I think it’s incredibly important to have awkward conversations to move our own and our world’s thinking forward.

Without awkward conversations and being willing to feel awkward and make other’s feel awkward, we can’t evolve our thinking and our experiences of the world.

I talk about things that make people feel uncomfortable, not to make people feel uncomfortable, but to let the few people listening that are thinking “I’m alone and weird and stuck in this experience”, to let them know that they aren’t alone or stuck, though they may well be weird and that’s no bad thing.

Having conversations that make folk feel uncomfortable creates pockets of comfortable that we can expand and change the world with.

The other, very useful, thing about saying difficult things is that it can highlight folk that you may want to avoid. If a “PC gone mad” person decides that even if we replace “PC” with “respect” things have still gone too far, well now you know and that can help you make decisions that look after yourself.

Challenging the status quo

In a recent marketing workshop I was at someone said something along the lines of, “the status quo is your competition”.

They meant that even if you have a unique product your marketing has to entice people away from the things they are used to and overcome the inertia of what they already know.

It struck me that this phrase could apply to being awkward too.

When a someone said to me “It’s so sad” about a mutual friend getting a divorce, I said, “I don’t think so, I think if our friend is unhappy in their marriage then getting a divorce isn’t sad. It’s sad the relationship didn’t work out in the way they hoped, but it’s not sad that they aren’t in it anymore if they were unhappy.”

The table went quiet until someone changed the subject, but I’m not going to fib, I’m not going to say what I don’t think just because it’s polite or expected. I’m going to challenge the thinking that marriages and relationships should last forever and ever and we should stay in them no matter what.

Being awkward gives people the space to reflect on the status quo and to see if their thinking has outgrown it.

I’m curious…

Have you been feeling awkward this week? I’d love to hear in the comments.