Pathologically Genuine XV: A scene from a large professional meeting
I feel ashamed as if I were a dog that peed in the house, even though I know I tried to hold it until I was let outside, because I think I am supposed to really enjoy being here
My book coach gave me an assignment this past week to write a couple of “scenes.” She didn’t define scenes because she wanted me to think it through. I think the exercise was about giving more context and feelings within a single “event.” I wrote two. This was the first one. It is kind of dark. I like the 2nd one better but because a character is identified, I wanted to make sure he was ok with posting it. I am posting this only for comments that readers might have. I have a poll on the bottom.
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I am standing in front of the mirror in my hotel room which is typical of any Marriott hotel room in the US. I tuck in my Brooks Brothers light blue button-down dress shirt, pull up my pants over my belly, and pull my cheap faux leather black belt as tight as I can around my khaki pants in the hopes that this will keep people from noticing that I am a little bit fat. Then I put on my navy sport coat that got a bit wrinkled on the trip in. I really couldn’t care less about the wrinkles. But I know that I am supposed to care. In a small act of rebellion, I decide not to worry about it.
Then I glance at my face, my salt and pepper beard and my gray somewhat curly but thinning hair which tends to do whatever it feels like on that particular day. It looks good enough to not be embarrassing. So. I am ready to go.
I let out a big sigh. While doing so, I am wondering why I decided to make this trip. I feel like I should be excited to be here, but it now feels like this is the last place in the world I want to be. My anxiety is rising like a helium balloon that would fly off into the atmosphere if it weren’t tethered by my anxiety meds.
I take a deep breath. I tell myself that everything will be better this time. I exhale. I say to myself “here we go again” and walk out the door. I walk down the hallway and enter the elevator. It is empty - a small sense of relief but only delaying the tsunami of social anxiety. I hit the button for the floor that houses the conference center
When the door opens, I feel a sensory explosion. The lights are bright. The patterns on the dull red carpet immediately start to give me a headache. The din of hundreds of people talking irritates me as if I were sitting having a cup of relaxing cup of coffee just as a pack of Harley Davidson motorcycles drive by revving their engines to two hundred decibels. The air is stale, making me wish for a cool breeze.
I turn my head both ways and notice so many well-dressed people mingling, making small talk, smiling, laughing. Some greet each other as if they were long lost friends. I feel a hint of jealousy because they seem so comfortable being here and because I can’t seem to find anyone that I know and would feel comfortable talking to. I feel ashamed as if I were a dog that peed in the house, even though I know I tried to hold it until I was let outside, because I think I am supposed to really enjoy being here. I also feel like a failure for not having the skill to make small talk. That feeling reminds me of the feeling I had in little league when the loss of my confidence took away any skill I once had to hit a fast ball leading to strike out after strike out.
The plenary session of the meeting won’t start for another 20 minutes. But I just can’t take another minute of standing awkwardly in this hallway. And the sensory overwhelm is getting hard to manage.
So, I enter the meeting room with roughly 5,000 chairs. It is quieter and darker, easing my anxiety.
I feel happy to get there early because I can get a seat on the aisle giving me more room and also allowing for a rapid exit. I always sit in the front because it massively increases the probability that no one will sit next to me.
I mean human behavior is very odd to me. People always want to sit in the back. It drives me crazy as a professor, but I expect it from young people. But here I will be in a room with academic administrators, many who used to be faculty and hated their students sitting in the back of the room, that will fill up the back rows for what feels like several years before the stragglers who stayed too long in the hallway have to take a seat toward the front.
As people enter the room the noise level rises with talking and laughter. As the room fills, the din starts to overwhelm me. And, because I am not a part of the din, I feel as if I am alien who is on the wrong planet. When will this god damn presentation start?
None of this is new to me. I have felt the exact same way at every plenary session of a large professional organization every year for the last 40 years. Yet, every year I decide to go hoping that this time my social anxiety will disappear and that my senses won’t be overwhelmed by the sensory torture chambers that exist in conference centers.
I felt optimistic when I registered and booked plane and hotel reservations for this meeting several months ago. But here I am once again, at the opening plenary session wishing I were somewhere else comfortably dressed in a baggy shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers, playing a guitar with my dog by my side looking out at natural beauty.
Finally, the lights dim, and the din of the noise of people talking turns to silence. I let out a sigh of relief. I often think that I was meant to be a turtle where I could withdraw myself into a safe and quiet place, protected from the outside world with an armored shell, whenever I needed to. Although I can’t do that, the starting of the presentation, in a dark room, with only one person talking and only one person to focus on, feels to me like the safety of a turtle shell. It feels especially good because my strategy worked- there is no one sitting next to me. In fact, I am alone in my row to the left of the stage.
The vast majority of the several thousand attendees are behind me. I am now oblivious to them. I like it that way. For now, I can relax a bit and maybe learn something from the speaker I also feel sheltered from the storm of anxiety that awaits me outside of this room when this plenary session ends.
About your writing. I would call this a scene in three parts. There is the prep time in your room, the building anxiety in the hallway with you still outside of the anxiety bubble you are about to enter--observing it dispassionately--and then being inside the pressure bubble by entering the meeting room. I like the contextual analogies of the helium balloon tethered by anxiety meds, the peace of sipping the cup of coffee disturbed by the 200-decibel motorcycle gang, the shame of the dog that peed in the house, losing confidence in softball, the analogy of the details of the scene to a sensory torture chamber, and wishing you were in your happy spot looking at nature and playing guitar with your dog by your side. And the turtle in his shell pulls it all together. All these things help break the big picture conflict/scene down into its parts, and I can relate to your feelings through the strong visuals.
Since you took the reader on a journey with you, it is so much more interesting than if you started with talking about what you hate about presentations in meeting rooms. You let it build, and broke down the scene into its parts. It's a bit like following the hobbits on their journey from the Shire to Mordor. Tolkein could have just said the hobbits left home and then picked up the action in Mordor. If he had done that, he'd have a littler book now, with a smaller following.
Something that hinted at a bigger story, but moved the reader little--or at least not as much as he did. Actually, I think Tolkein could have done very well with the challenge of limiting his scope because he is a talented writer--and if you can deliver risk and suspense and humor and everything else in a shorter book, you could still have a strong following--but you get my point, which is this:
The reader wants to be moved.
In this case, you moved me. I got to know you at the mirror, in the lobby, and down in the meeting room. And you helped me see I have some of the same anxieties, but just haven't taken the time to break them down for myself like you have done with yours.
As you expand the themes, you can use scenes like these to identify feelings, and compose a book that sheds light on why you feel the way you do--and whether these feelings define your existence and hold you captive, or if by identifying them and coming to peace with them, you are actually taking bold steps into a new and inspirational transcendent future. Either outcome can make you a hero or villain, or even an average Jim, with an interested audience who appreciates hearing your perspective.
Ultimately, you are helping me understand the challenge of navigating life with autism, and I find your writing entertaining and informative, and look forward to reading more! Well done!