It ... just ... makes...me ......... uncomfortable

Got a surprise phone call from a college buddy today, direct from Hong Kong, where he now lives. Although he was always was stone-faced and sort of laconic, as a big time banking executive, he's even more so now. When I get phone calls from him, I imagine him leaning back in a big leather chair tapping his finger tips together like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. After every question I ask there is a several second delay, as he ponders his response. I used to think that this was the delay from the satellite signals, but it happens when we're both on the same continent too.

Silence of any kind makes me uncomfortable. I've wondered if this is a New York thing -- do New Yorkers hate silence or do they just not have much experience with it? I run into this problem with people from the midwest sometimes -- amazingly they seem perfectly comfortable sitting in a restaurant not talking. Nonetheless, I think silence is becoming foreign to us. At my nephew's confirmation a few months back, a bishop from the remote south pacific came to preside. He remarked on how everyone walked around carrying a water bottle, talking on a cellphone and listening to their headphones -- we don't do silence much anymore.

But even in the days before the ubiquitous ipod, I found myself uncomfortable with silence. I once ended a date after ninety minutes after a series of exchanges like this:

Paul: "So how long have you lived in Atlanta?"
Date: "One year and ten months." [silence]
Paul: "Oh, so where did you move here from?"
Date: "Dawsonville." [silence]
Paul: "So, that's where you grew up?"
Date: "Yes" [silence]

We were eating Chinese food that night. I remember trying to decide what would be more painful, trying to keep this conversation going or taking the chopsticks on the table and just driving them into my eardrums. I opted for calling the evening early instead of deafening myself.

I am not really in a position to criticize too much, however. When I was teaching history a few years ago, more than a few of my students commented on ... the ... long ......... pauses ... that I .... insisted on inserting into my ................... lectures. When I told the woman I was dating about these comments, she exclaimed, "oh yes, that drives me crazy!" There's a tiny delay in the relay between my brain and my mouth sometimes. I guess I'll try to cut down on the awkward pauses in my public speaking if my friends stop calling me from Asia acting like Monty Burns.