Somehow a recent chat with a friend brought up the feel about awkward silences. She said that a guy-friend of hers had told her that it's nice to talk to her as there are no awkward silences.
And so I remembered the years when I was in Canada. If you do not know, here's a fact about Canadians: They simply hate the so called awkward silences. They have this constant urge to fill in every second with words. It is like a plague. And if they fail to produce a sound, they, of course, have to apologize for it! It's quite ridiculous. As for me, I'm Latvian, we are very different from Canadians. We like to be quite, and we like to keep to ourselves, some more than others, but in comparison, most Latvians will not like if you talk non-stop.
So very often when I would be in a room with one or more Canadians, they would feel pressured to talk. And, naturally, they expected everyone else to pitch into the conversation. When I did not speak as much as they would like, I could see that they begun to feel uncomfortable. It was like someone was pinching them, or as if someone was saying something extremely controversial, or as if they really needed to use the toilet, but couldn't... like something was seriously bothering them. I have to admit that I made fun of this in my head. They have this urge to produce a useless conversation, it's like an addiction. And if it does not go as planned, they went ahead and kept talking.
What do they talk about, one might wonder.
Weather, that's a no briner. It's always changing, and so is a good chat material. You can talk about it at any given time, as the weather is a continuous thing. Winter is cold and filled with snow, summer is hot, fall is rainy....and so on.
Hockey! They either talk about their favourite teams, or if they don't like hockey, they will talk about how much they dislike hockey! They will also go as far as talking about equipment and different leagues and levels of hockey. All this talk will lead in talking about other kinds of sports (or the dislike of all other kinds of sports). I must add, though, that most Canadians do like sports! Now that, in my opinion, is a good and healthy thing!
They will also talk about what ever is happening around. If it's a chat at work or school they'll talk about tasks, meeting, classes, bosses, teachers, ....etc.
They also will compliment each other. Then the small talk goes into talking about where the certain thing was gotten and they will talk about that thing. For example, if I would have a scarf from a friend, the other person would say: "what a lovely scarf you have, looks good with that jacket! Where did you get it?" To this I will reply that I borrowed it from a friend. The other person would then say: "Oh, really? I do that too sometimes. Me and one of my friends, we swap and borrow things all the time." ... Well you get the point, don't you?
What is my say? I think people should not fill every moment with some pointless conversation. It is highly annoying, and brings no good. I like silences, I love them, and I feel perfectly comfortable when no one is saying anything. I think this should be practiced more often.
Maybe people fear their own thoughts and that's why if there is a silence, they have to call it awkward. ..
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