I didn’t notice at first. As my friend continued to speak, her husband began to cough. Not a hearty cough that characterizes the beginnings of a prolonged flu, but a quieter, less productive cough. Had it not continued, I would have thought nothing of it, but it was not an automatic response to a tickle or tightening in his throat. Instead, it was a practiced response to the topic of conversation his wife was about to breach.
Politics and religion. Sex or money. Race, too, and even ideas about gender now. The number of forbidden topics seems to grow by the day. I can’t even remember which one my friend was beginning to skirt until finally, it was clear the subtle warning cough wasn’t doing its job. So, with a declaration that our topic was becoming impolite, the cough revealed itself as what it was, a warning sign of a different kind of discomfort.
Since I work at a church and have studied religion in higher education, avoiding the topic is just short of impossible. If we can’t talk about religion, suddenly I can’t talk about work, what I’m reading, what I’m learning, or what I’m doing this weekend. My contribution to the conversation is rendered null and void by virtue of my chosen profession—if I’m to abide by the polite conversation rule.
Likewise, my husband is a mental health professional. Now more than ever, his profession requires a rejection of the classic conversation etiquette. How would he help any of his clients if he abided by that golden rule of considerate communication? They’d cover the weather weekly, but it wouldn’t help anyone.
That barrier between what’s polite and what’s not dinnertime conversation has so receded, he has a hard time remembering where it was in the first place. Does it stop before relationships with your family or after? Which feelings are off limits, just the bad ones? One of Nicholas’ mentors calls him “a violator.” I’m sure that’s the way others feel, too.
So, here we are—a unit whose very lives revolve around ideas, issues, and topics no one wants to talk about. We’re violators of the mandate of well-mannered dialogue.
Now we must sound like irreverent scofflaws, ushering people into discomfort for some callous reason. Maybe that’s what my friend’s husband thought. It’s not that we trespass into forbidden territories for shock value. Actually, we’re making a wager every time we fill the space between us with words.
Here’s the wager we make with every conversation—the equation that we’re committing to. Relationship plus vulnerability equals intimacy. What’s the opposing option? Relationship minus vulnerability equals comfort.
“I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few,” admitted Brene Brown, writer and convert to vulnerability.
Don’t worry. I’m not sharing my life story with my car mechanic or asking my dentist about his sex life. I still have boundaries and respect healthy common sensibilities. But there we were—years after we had met, shared dinners, spent time in each other’s homes, and my friends found it more appropriate to talk about the weather than what we genuinely thought about the world around us.
There’s always a risk with words. They are weighty and sometimes worrisome, healing or hurtful. We shouldn’t be glib about their power, but we can’t forget their purpose: to build connection. Brene Brown—who earnestly looked for a way to discover intimacy without vulnerability—discovered this truth in all of her research about people who lived life most fully: “Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection.”
Building connection takes risk and a conscious choice to value intimacy above comfort. We don’t get the gift of intimacy without paying with the currency of vulnerability. No other form of polite payment will yield the connection we desire.
So, ignore the subtle coughing. Push away the subconscious fear that choosing to risk for relationship isn’t worth the wager. Show up and be vulnerable in your conversation because in a city of nearly 300 days of sunshine, we just can’t chat about the weather.
