As one often does, I too once had a group of friends in college. There was one friend in particular, who simply loved to talk.

“I’m a conversation hoe”, he would exclaim from time to time. He had a way with words and always had something to say. No matter how appropriate, inappropriate or goofy the thought, he would verbalize it immediately, regardless of the seriousness of the situation. As you can imagine, he spent most of his time with his foot in his mouth.

“ You don’t know when to shut up”, those of us close to him never passed an opportunity to point out. It only served to strengthen his resolve, much to the bewilderment of everyone around him.

Soon after he started dating and things were starting to get serious, he wanted us to meet his new girlfriend. “ Let’s all go have dinner together soon.”

The day arrived. Unbeknownst to any of us, the girl was living with another girl who happened to be in the same academic course as her. They were both shy and decided it would be better for them to go together having found out that the friend group comprised of only boys. So the girlfriend decided to bring her flatmate along to our outing.

Usually, things of this sort mattered very little, because we always had our in-house self-appointed ‘wordsmith’ ever present to demolish ice.

Having been ‘called out’ for his extroversion in the past, however, my friend had made up his mind to stay quiet for the duration of the night. It was not going to be easy for him, but he was determined not to get in the way of anyone getting to ‘organically’ know each other. He was going to stay strong and silent for the greater good, he thought. So apart from formally introducing the two groups at the start, he said or did nothing else the entire night. The rest of us stayed quiet too. Suffice it to say, it was the longest dinner any of us ever experienced, although it was only 2 hours in duration.

“ So what do you think of her ?” He asked us rather gleefully after we parted company with the two girls. “ You don’t know when to shut up”, we reminded him.

In closing

To reference an earlier post of mine, 'Thoughts on thinking', I think we must develop our grip on how much we speak in addition to how much we think. Sadly, it’s easy to get stuck in thoughts of what to say, when to say it and how much is too much. The best solution to combat this is to consider that less is more but nothing is too little. If silence is essential given a situation at hand, then so be it. Silence is extremely powerful but when used incorrectly can be extremely rude and sometimes even undermine your position in a given situation. A worthy topic that merits discussion on how best to use it. Hopefully by someone better suited than yours truly.

“Don’t say 7 words when 4 will do.” - Rusty Ryan to Linus Caldwell in Ocean’s Eleven