Surface Tension

She vigorously moved the whisk with overt confidence, agitating the mixture as she explained, “I want to bring out all those beautiful, unctuous qualities.”  Oooooo, unctuous, what an interesting sounding word, what exactly does it mean?

I have always loved learning new words. And for as long as I can remember, I have read with a dictionary within arm’s reach. And now that we have electronic devices that fit in our pockets, I always have a dictionary with me, which makes befriending new vocabulary an effortless proposition. So, when the chef I was watching on television used the word unctuous, I was quick to research her intended meaning.

You can imagine my surprise when my hasty Google search delivered these results: Unctuous: (of a person) excessively or ingratiatingly flattering; oily. Excessively smooth, suave, or smug. Unctuous people or behavior expresses too much praise, interest, friendliness in a way that is false and unpleasant.

Oh, my goodness…is YOU.logy unctuous? Am I…unctuous? Have I become a proponent of behavior that is socially ill regarded? If this word exists, there must be something in our lived experience that makes it necessary. Is THIS the reason people don’t directly speak about the positive things they recognize, appreciate and respect in others until some forthcoming ending?

I felt so disquieted by the arrival of this unfamiliar word; I wanted to climb out of my own skin, embarrassed at how childish I must appear. For days, this insecurity followed me like a shadow. Almost as a gift of grace, the universe conspired to hand deliver Ken and I into a living example of unctuous.

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We arrived in Las Vegas with only 2 hours of sleep. Fluffy headed and battered by the demands of travel coordination, we were an easy mark for the sales agent who is paid to insinuate herself into the path of our awaiting rental car. Her friendly inquiries about “what we might be celebrating” or “enjoy adding to our vacation plans” felt as intrusive as they were overly familiar. Skeptical, we danced the fine line of being polite and guarded until she pulled out the free 5-day trip, cash, and casino vouchers. I watched Ken’s eyes widen as if he just hit the triple seven jackpot and when he asked me what I thought, I struggled to find the right balance between my preferences and being a supportive wife.

Completely sleep deprived, the only place I desired to be was in a warm and cozy bed. But we were several hours away from being able to check into our hotel room, so I did what any compromising spouse would do. I agreed to trade in two and a half hours of my time for the allure of free cash and prizes. I knew enduring a heavy-handed sales pitch for vacation property would not kill me…but it was grueling.

I must really love Ken because as we voluntarily drove towards this social vice grip, I felt an irrational concern about getting lost, arriving late, and losing our promised bribe. After parking the car, we stepped into their lair and our masterclass in coercion.

We walked up a flight of stairs, filled out the required contact forms, and took our seats among a handful of other circumspect couples. Each twosome huddled and conspiratorially whispered their strategies for efficiently emerging unscathed and victorious. As I sat there, my frazzled nervous system responded to the environment as if I had entered an active hive, humming with determination.

Dozens of men and women with commission breath skulked around waiting for their cue to pounce on the amenable nature bought by the promise of cash incentive. As if held in a stockade and released only when they were assigned the name of their specific victim, each representative sidled down the same hallway. They scanned the collection of reticent faces currently occupying the “holding cell” they called a waiting area, and with varying levels of confidence, they called out a name.

As each greeting occurred, I noticed not a single introduction included a handshake, surely an unconscious acknowledgment of how hollow each party intended to keep the interaction. As the sales agents walked their prey down a wide hallway, I could feel the performative empathy as they made unnaturally direct eye contact while assuring the couple they had sat in the very same seat “X” number of years ago.

Eventually, we met our lead contact, Arick. To say he was transparent would be an understatement. He walked us to a concession stand saying, “This is the only free thing you will find here, so I recommend you fill your arms and make yourself content.” 

We were conveyed to a large room full of two-foot-round tables where each salesperson held court. Although heard in fragments, I could tell each associate had a scripted story about some life altering experience that reminded them of “what is most important in life.”  (Memories, adventures, and experiences shared with family and friends in new and exotic places…In case you weren’t sure) And each had a poignant moment of clarity when they just knew “they needed to help more people access the miracle of real-life satisfaction.”  (Translation: The moment when they accepted employment with this company.) As Arick settled into his own version of storytelling, Ken interrupted him and said, “Well, Arick, what are we doing here together?”

With an impish smile, he said “Well, right now, I am pretending to get to know you so I can figure out which sales strategy is going to work best on you. A little later we will take you into a room where someone will ask you ‘where you would most like to travel.’ They will then assure you that if you say “yes” to our offer today, you will find yourself there one day. After that presentation, we will return here, and I will call someone over who will appear to be partnering with me to suggest the best plan that fits your current and future lifestyles. At that point, we will ask you if you are ‘ready to invest in your future happiness.’  You will share your decision and I either become your future contact or we never see or hear from each other again.”  Arick’s summary was both honest and accurate. That was exactly what we experienced.   

However, he failed to mention that there is a tag team assigned to us and that his role was to unearth the raw human content that could be plied by the fleet of five who would be working their emotional crochet hooks on us. Three appeared to be “rovers.” They were the ones that Arick supplied with the newest emotional loose thread that could be snagged. The other two played more specific roles in the process, which would only be called upon when necessary. (Like when we said, “No”) But there were clear moments when you could see the “passing of the sales pitch baton.”  

Arick would offer to get us more water or a cup of coffee and then he would stand around with three of his peers, appearing to be “shooting the shit” and exchanging hearty laughter as a cup was filled. Except some key piece of information about our life was jauntily peppered into their feigned professional camaraderie. And eventually one of those same three men would find their way over to our table and share about a “similar experience” we had only recently shared with Arick. I remember watching it unfold, keenly aware of the performative quality to it and I remember thinking, “Do they expect us to believe this charade? I bet they all hate each other and KNOW it.” 

To be clear, Ken and I laughed a lot with Arick and found him to be utterly enjoyable company. In fact, many of them were charming, entertaining, and very likable people. And yet, every one of them was unctuous. I entered this unusual start to our vacation wanting a nap. I left needing a shower.

Arick and his peers were exceptionally skillful at disarming people. Having charm and getting along well with people indisputably makes communication easier. And it can be effective in lubricating people to disclose information about themselves. But what Arick is skillful at is building rapport, NOT making connections. Connection happens when people feel the respect of being seen, heard, and understood. No amount of charm guarantees that.  Arick and his cohorts taught me an important distinction. We can thoroughly enjoy someone’s company and still feel completely unseen and disconnected.

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There is a key component to the YOU.logy concept that I have not written a great deal about. I call it the eulogy part of YOU.logy. You know, the part where we name something we are particularly appreciative to have experienced with our conversational partner.

In large part, the reason I haven’t shared much about it is because when I have tried my hand at this, I have found that people meet my compliments and kind words with a good measure of “suspicion” AND things get weirdly uncomfortable. I have had people contest them, diminish them, ignore them or in some cases, just want to get away from me. My rude awakening to the word unctuous and our meeting with Arick has shone a bright spotlight on the importance of two things, specificity and understated sincerity.  

So, what makes for a successful YOU.logy? Well, I have experimented for a while now and while there are no guarantees, I can offer some suggestions. Attentive listening and mindful awareness sit at the center of successful YOU.logies. If you are not attuned to your conversational partner and to how you are feeling in your interaction, you will not be able to deliver a sincere and well received YOU.logy.

The best YOU.logies happen when you are oriented towards finding an unexpected “gem” within the experience. I like looking and listening for things that are:

• Unique to the experience
• Skillful, admirable, or generous in the person
• Something I needed to hear or see
• A similarity or something I have thought or felt before

When acknowledging your “gem” or conversational “take away” I have found gratitude is received much more freely than praise. They may not fully “own” what you claim you benefitted from, but they will not argue against your gratitude. Also, sharing how YOU experienced or felt something in their presence is accepted easier than making an observation about them. You may see something in them that they do not yet see or recognize and no matter how genuine it feels to you, most people struggle to receive what they do not see as true. As you begin your journey in acknowledging the goodness you find in others, be careful that you do NOT overreach or overstate…that is UNCTUOUS territory. And I cannot emphasize this enough, specificity matters!

At the risk of making an epic sized post, I would like to offer some real-life examples:

UNIQUE TO THE EXPERIENCE:

When I was a picture framer, people often said, “You are really good at this.”  I admit, I dismissed these kinds of compliments. And I think it is because we spend so much time and energy trying to be like everyone else that we create huge blind spots for the ways we are uniquely different.

From my perspective, all picture framers have access to and are likely to use the same matboard options and frame vendors. And if they are in business for any length of time, I suspect they deliver a similar level of workmanship. So, while it is incredibly reductive, I figured people chose our shop based more on their needs, our proximity, and perhaps a bit of friendly rapport. I truly could not see what made our shop all that different from another.

But when one of our clients told me she had used other frame shops in the past and none of them listened to and included aspects of their personal storytelling into the design (which was something I recognized to be true about my process) suddenly I could hear and recognize what made us unique…AND then comfortably receive her compliment.  Which is why specificity matters!

SKILLFUL, ADMIRABLE or GENEROUS TRAITS WITHIN THE PERSON:

A while back, my husband and I were attending a dinner party and two members engaged in what I would describe as a loud difference of opinion. Nothing devolved into personal character attacks, but loud opposing viewpoints often make me uncomfortable. So, when I watched how unflappable this woman appeared in the presence of this kind of vehemence, it caught my attention. The conversation ended with them each agreeing to disagree.

But at the end of the night, I felt compelled to say something to the woman. I told her, “I do not do well with loud, angry voices, and I just want to tell you I was really impressed with how you held your position. You didn’t match their angry tone or shrink in the face of it. You did not interrupt them, nor did you abandon your perspective. I don’t know how you were feeling during that whole exchange, but I really admire and appreciate your example of holding a position with strength and respect.”   She blinked a couple of times and with a mix of surprise and satisfaction she simply said, “Thank you.”

SOMETHING I NEEDED TO HEAR OR SEE:

One of my favorite forms of YOU.logy is to thank someone for something they said and share why it felt important for me to hear it. If you are looking to avoid uncomfortable reception, I can tell you this gesture is almost always received warmly and with a little surprise that you heard their words with such exactness.

A client, whom I had never worked with before, came into the gallery and while I had no idea why this conversation emerged between us, he amusingly relayed a story about a store clerk who had halted a salesperson dead in their tracks. The story was simple, but incredibly timely and I remember thinking, “Are you an angel?”  I do not have a strong affinity for the concept of angels, but the conversation felt so divinely delivered, I could not understand it any other way.

While maintaining my sense of awe, the client and I completed an otherwise normal frame design process. But before he left, I said. “You would have no way of knowing this, but I must thank you for sharing that story about the store clerk. I have been struggling with setting a very necessary boundary in my life and your story helped me understand that a boundary can be made without it feeling angry or reactive. And I am just so grateful you shared it with me.” 

The gentleman looked up in a way that told me my words caught his attention, and we exchanged a moment of intense eye contact, He smiled and said, “I’m glad it found you then.” 

Again, I thought, “Seriously, are you an angel?!”  Who says things like that?

NAMING THE CONNECTION:

Another way to deliver a successful YOU.logy is to share how your conversational partner said or did something that mirrors something you have felt or experienced as well. It is extremely simple. You are just naming the connection. But this works best when you include a feeling that is shared around the similarity. Let me offer an example.

Shortly after closing our gallery, I attended a retreat. When asked to introduce myself and why I was drawn to participate, I shared about how my husband and I just closed our business and that in walking away from everything that defined me, I was feeling particularly adrift.  I jokingly said to the facilitator, “No pressure, but I am searching for new meaning and purpose in my life.”  One of the participants walked up to me later and unwittingly delivered her own YOU.logy to me saying, “I really resonated with what you said. I, too, am a former business owner and also recently closed my shop. It is uncomfortable in ways that I think a lot of retirees do not understand.”  We had an instant connection that stayed with us for the balance of the retreat.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

I am going to be honest; my idealism wants to believe that each of us could be inspired to live from our highest potential if we spent more time looking for it in each other and naming it when we spot it. But apparently, human nature resists absorbing oil as much as the contents being whipped in that chef’s bowl at the start of this post. Oil’s nature is to stay on the surface. And our nature is to resist words that linger there too.

YOU.logy challenges us to go beyond the surface. And although we must hone our listening skills and redirect our focus, we already possess everything we need to deliver effective You.logies. We are quite skillful in making comparisons. YOU.logy just challenges us to appreciate the differences instead of separating around them. We all love finding similarities. YOU.logy asks us to name what we are feeling when sharing common ground. For some reason, YOU.logy’s biggest challenge is becoming skillful in believing and receiving kind words about our own unique presence.

It has been my experience that sincere, understated, and specific statements of appreciation have the greatest potential to break the surface of the guarded human heart enough to allow it to absorb and integrate another’s kind words.

Please share your reactions and experiences.