Reading The Room

Disclaimer/ Content warning: death of family members. Please stop reading if this subject is difficult for you.

Awkward moments are psychological horror in the most tangible sense. They are not some abstract idea or imaginary being. You’re dealing with your own personal shortcomings as the monster. They are a reminder of embarrassing mistakes and fear it could happen again. They lurk constantly ready to strike when you least expect it.

We can fight them, run away, or we can embrace the horror.

To fight the monster, means knowing how to act with regard to others, or reading the room.

There are several factors to consider when understanding how to read the room. What situation are you in? Who is with you? Are you at work? Out in public? At home? Are you part of an important ceremony? Do you know what your role is? What are the written (and unwritten) rules of the place and situation you find yourself?

Awkwardness is not a random thing. Sometimes circumstance has a part to play, but that is the same with anything. Avoiding awkward situations means understanding how to read the room. Awkwardness strikes with deadly precision and ignorance is the root cause. Careful consideration and doing your homework ahead of time can help save potential embarrassment.

Understanding other people's non-verbal cues is also essential. Body language, tone of voice, facial expressions and hand gestures can help when you aren’t sure if you’re being awkward.

People can be forgiving about awkward things and may go out of their way to help you if they can. Forgetting someone’s name or mispronouncing it is a good everyday example.

How you see that person will be affected by how they handle mispronouncing or forgetting your name. If it happens once or twice, it’s okay. You will correct them and if they correct the mistake, you would most likely forgive that person. If it keeps happening, then it’s irritating and you will probably have negative feelings towards them. It’s not the person you will talk to by choice or want to be seen with.

Most of the time people will forgive awkward situations. A deliberate effort to consider other people and situations greatly reduces the risk of awkwardness. Someone who frequently creates awkward situations is likely someone who cannot read the room.

Running away from the awkwardness or trying to cover it up will almost certainly make it worse. There are countless ways people unintentionally exacerbate awkward situations.

The inability to hear someone can turn any situation awkward even in the safest situations. Whenever you cannot hear someone, asking them to repeat themselves once or twice might be okay. Any more than that will certainly irritate people.

The repeated behavior is is the problem. However, I have had people become openly hostile towards ME because THEY could not hear me ONCE and had to ask me to repeat myself. Expectations can be high and that is always uncomfortable.

When I saw this challenge, what stood out for me most was one THING. Let me talk about something that isn’t that though. I have plenty of other situations to talk about.

List of Awkward Embarrassing Moments in my Life:

• Joking in a serious situation
• Unprepared when called on by cashiers, teachers, etc
• Attempting to outmaneuver senior management at my company, in meetings, as an intern, on several occasions
• Arguing with customers at my job by trying to prove to them how they are wrong. (Often times able to prove they are wrong and them being mad anyways)
• Strictly adhering to rules as written, also to the annoyance of customers and society in general
• Arguing way more than is necessary
• Existential crisis
• ...THING

You can’t talk about that THING Ari. You just can’t. It isn’t funny or light-hearted. The contest rules must be observed.

How did that THING get on the list? It’s not a situation anyone laughs at. So I won’t talk about that. Let me talk instead about another time, something else. Not the tragedy, no.

It won’t do for proper behavior. We are having fun. Read the room.

Laughing uncontrollably when no one else is around because you remembered something funny.

Talk about literally anything else. How many things are there? There are countless but I just can't remember them that well right now. All I can think about is the THING.

I mean how many times have you laughed loudly in a quiet room, by yourself, haha

We’re supposed to be having fun...

That was cringe but it all worked out in the end. It all worked out…right?

Have you ever said “You too” when the pizza guy says “Enjoy your food”?

I don’t regret that anymore.

What about when someone tries to pass you and you get in the way a couple of times?

I am running out of distractions...

Awkward moments remind me of that which we don’t talk to our families about but will share with friends. Sexual issues, drugs, maybe even crime? It can help to keep the skeletons in our closet. They can also create a heavy air in the room depending on who already knows that they are hiding.

Sensitive topics we don’t talk about linger. In their persistence, they can create awkward situations. We all know the feeling you get if you think someone knows about what dumb thing you did. Even if you only imagine they knew, and they do not, it is uncomfortable for you. You’ll have to diffuse that eventually or it will continue to make things difficult. The resentment someone has towards you may go away on it's own but it takes a long time. That may ruin relationships before then.

Addressing the cause of uneasiness can either create more awkwardness, arguing, or can completely defuse the situation. The demons of our past are truly unpredictable. It is hard to know exactly when saying the taboo or unpleasant is appropriate and will help.

We certainly don't talk about them with strangers, although in this setting, it is relatively safe to do so. As long as one does it in a polite way.

Regardless of what people may think about what you say and considering others is exactly how to avoid awkward situations, you should say what you need to say.

There are everyday awkward situations and then there are the ones that you want to erase from existence.

This THING is one of those. If I had access to a genie, I would strongly consider using it to erase this tragedy so thoroughly that the moment in time would become a void for everyone. No one would remember any memories for those few hours. That time never happened and no one would be aware they even forgot. Anything that was written down or recorded then, would simply disappear.

I will talk about the THING. The true villain in this story.

I have to apologize in advance that no one will be laughing about this tragedy and the awkward situations associated with it.

I needed to find my girlfriend in an Emergency Room. I had no idea what ER she was in. The accident happened in Chicago.

My girlfriend had fallen down the stairs. Her sister fell down the stairs, on top of her while they were walking up to her apartment. She texted to tell me she was going to the ER. There was blood.

She said she was going to either the Hospital A or Hospital B(names omitted to differentiate them easier and for privacy). I told her I would be there as soon as I could. I was about an hour and a half away.

She fell unconscious on the way to the ER. She was also 3 months pregnant with our twin girls at the time.

I went to Hospital A. She was not there. I called and texted her. No answer. I thought she would be at Hospital B and she was not there either.

Panic really hit me then. I called her again. No answer. It was getting late and traffic is heavy on weekend nights.

She texted me asking where I was. I replied immediately asking her where she is. She did not know. I received no more texts. I tried to call several times. No answer. I started looking for other hospitals near her apartment.

I found Hospital C and called to see if she is there. I am not family so no Hospital staff could tell me whether or not she was in the ER. Oddly enough, every hospital I talked to at this point said they would look, or pretended to. That kind of thing only added to the confusion I was going through.

At this point I was calling her continuously while trying to get to the hospital. The nightmare would be over if she just picked up once. When I got to Hospital C, I asked the desk if she was there. The security guard said she was not there.

At that point I had no idea what to do. I was losing my mind. I went back to Hospital B and still no luck. Hospital B was near a police department. I went there for help. The police told me to reach out to family. I found her sister on Facebook. Her sister told me my girlfriend went home and is alright.

Knowing my girlfriend was okay was enough for me so I went home. We weren't living together and I lived far away at the time. About an hour later my girlfriend called me at 2 a.m.

She sounded heavily medicated. She asked why I contacted her sister. She was upset about this. She didn't want me to contact her family. My girlfriend also asked why I did not come see her. I told her what happened. She told me she was in Hospital C. She had not been there before.

My girlfriend also told me she is no longer pregnant.

I broke down and cried uncontrollably. She told me the details of what happened. I will not repeat them here.

My girlfriend told me she is going to delete any pictures of her being pregnant. I vaguely remember how I responded to that. I only remember sadness. We ended the conversation.

There were two social interactions that I could have used to figure out that she was in Hospital C.

The first was over the phone. When I called the ER to Hospital C, I asked if she was there by name. She could not tell me. I was desperate so I asked if any pregnant person was there. It was an awkward conversation that went something like this:

The nurse told me, "There was on- no, there wasn't anyone here that was pregnant. Why would you ask that?" She sounded mad after she corrected herself. "We can't tell anyone about those things." Then she hung up.

It sounded like she was going to tell me that there was someone who was pregnant but is not anymore. I didn’t realize at the time that my girlfriend had lost our twin girls because in my mind she was still pregnant. The angry correction was the first clue that should have immediately alerted me she was there.

The second situation was talking to the security guard. He was a kind and helpful person. I asked if she was there and showed him the texts from her. She wanted me to be there. He took a long time verifying things. He eventually said she was not there as far as he knew but it could not hurt to check the ER to make sure.

I declined, as I believed him. I was also exhausted at that point and accepted my fate.

Trying to find my present ex-girlfriend on that day is the worst moment in my life.

Our relationship changed after that. She withdrew and would often break plans at the last minute. She didn’t want to talk about it or see me because she was afraid that it would hurt. Seeing my face would remind her of the girls. She wanted to forget and bury those feelings completely. She needed me to be gone from her life to do it.

I was devastated, as expected. I wanted to be there, I know it would have helped me to see her because I wasn't there. I wanted to make up for what happened.

The first time I saw her after this was a little over a month. We had fought a few times after the tragedy but she would not see me. Those fights were hard on us on top of what we just went through. The fallout of that and our breakup soon after was the lowest point of my life.

I truly loved her and our unborn children. With her, I realized what love was supposed to feel like. I had never felt that way with anyone else before. Sometimes I imagine what our girls would have been like. It is painful and sentimental. I wish I could have met them.

Would the story have a different ending if I had been able to read the people I talked to? Possibly. I still may not have been able to find her or get access to the ER.

The best outcome would have been to find her. Even if that didn't prevent us from breaking up, it was difficult for me mentally and emotionally to fail to see them. The tragedy was made worse because I was not there.

I know that even though she accepted what happened, she was disappointed in me. It is hard to rebuild trust after you let someone down.

Reading other people and understanding them could have prevented the awkward moments but not the tragedy. Had I been there, I wouldn't have felt as bad for not being there. I could have moved on a lot easier.

Since our breakup we have talked and there isn’t any malice towards each other. I have come to accept what happened then. It took at least a year to move on.

I am glad about having the opportunity to present this event in the way I did. It helps associate some positivity to my mistakes. Perhaps that is the intention of the challenge. I hope that sharing the importance of reading the room will help other people in their lives.

As a bonus, and final note:

I wanted to add this because it could help someone awkward.

In Japan, reading the room is called kuukiyomi. The literal translation is “reading the air”. There’s a game called “Kuukiyomi: Consider It”, which has all sorts of social situations to figure out. Players are judged by their ability to do the appropriate thing. There are also fun options for doing inappropriate things.

It is completely ridiculous and I highly recommend it. It is free on Android and Apple. There is also a PC version on Steam for $4.99 USD. It may help to see if you are a person who is unable to read the room.