Recently, I have attended a
wedding dinner of a relative. There were four others, who are strangers to my
family, sat at the same table as us. I will be only discussing about one of
them, addressing her as Mrs. Chatterbox, since she talked the most. The bride will
be turning 21 this year.
To break the awkwardness, one of
them started to talk by asking my parent about our relations to the bride.
My mum replied, “We are her relatives.” Then, she introduced us to them. Before
long, Mrs. Chatterbox started to share her worry for her kids as they want to earn
money first and do not want to get married at their age (early 30s). She later asked
my sister, who is turning 24 this year, whether she would earn money first or
start a family first. I realised that Mrs. Chatterbox's tone changed from a gossiping tone with hand gestures to a slightly formal tone as she leaned forward to display her curiosity. When my sis said that she will rather earn money and not
rely on my parents, Mrs. Chatterbox states that my generation would rather earn
first before starting a family, and praised her for doing so. While we were
eating, I caught a glimpse of her whispering to her colleagues.
Based on the conversation between
Mrs. Chatterbox and my mum, I deduced that she is a wealthy married woman who likes
to gossip as she talked more than one topic. This blog post length will be
doubled if I discussed about the part whereby she talked about her maid and that
her mum, aged 80, will nag at her at times. Also, she sounds as if she has more
experience just because she is slightly older than my mum.
Edited: 25 March 2016
Edited: 25 March 2016
Another way to look at her is that she has been through a lot of things in her life that helps her to be very conversational and an extrovert not being afraid to share her experiences of her life. Rather than just sitting quietly in a corner at a wedding, she is just being very friendly and nice to the married couple by not being a downer at a happy event. Well that is what I can see from my point of view.
ReplyDeleteSince Yu Shan brought up an optimistic reason for her behavior, I will suggest a pessimistic one. As a person's social circle widens, the level of social obligation also increases. She could very well be a friend of the the bride/groom's relative and is here because of the aforementioned social obligation. But as Yu Shan has mentioned, she probably did not want to be a downer at a happy event, even if she might not be particularly interested in the event. Her behavior may very well be her way of restraining herself from expressing any negative thoughts she may have because of having to fulfill this social obligation
ReplyDeleteGermaine, what is that you have observed communicating with people who is of a different generation? What was the verbal and non-verbal cues you have observed?
ReplyDelete