Several years ago, as newcomers in a homogeneous community of seasonal Florida residents, we duly visited our neighbors, introducing ourselves and inviting them to drop in for an evening of conversation and a nibble or two, to get to know one another better.
Expecting a moderate turnout and wanting to encourage conversation and promote circulation we arranged the furniture in a number of 2, 3 and 4 person groupings.
Our first hint of plans gone awry was that a throng of guests arrived at precisely the designated arrival time; a line actually formed outside the front door, limiting our ability to acknowledge each guest with due thanks. Over the years, I had come to expect guest arrivals a decent interval after the stated starting time, usually about 15 minutes. These precious moments were my sweet reward for prodigious effort and thoughtful consideration of my guests’ comfort before welcoming them at the front door.
The next misconception was food: every guest couple carried a contribution fit to feed a well-attended church supper. Since we already had enough to feed everyone the equivalent of a meal in appetizers, we were hard put to find counter or serving space. We had tapped into an unsuspected mother lode of provisions, culinary creativity and generosity.
We poured drinks and divvied up bins of food, asking people to find themselves a seat. Then we turned to circulate among our carefully arranged conversational groupings and whip up some witty repartee to be carried from cluster to cluster as people shifted and reformed according to conversational whims.
While we were busy our guests had rearranged the offered seating into a single large circle lining the perimeter of the room. The result suggested an oversubscribed therapy group stifled into uncomfortable reticence by the expanse of the circle’s girth: an occasion for performance rather than an opportunity for conversational intimacies.
Our lesson: the best intentioned plans may not survive encounters with unfamiliar social customs. After that halting start, we never fully connected with our neighbors and eventually moved out.
Copyright 2009
Lynn Chapman-Adler
www.lindalater.blogspot.com
Posted: August 25, 2009
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