Listening to rodeo clowns.

How a lack of worth ruins our ability to have conversations

We all have a friend like this. They are the center of the conversational universe. Even if they are listening, it’s from a crouched position waiting to pounce into the conversation to make it about them. They upstage, dismiss, and hold court as all topics obit their preferences. They have a trove of hero stories in which they expertly handed the struggle you’re sharing. Their stance is certainty; they need you or me to stop talking, and we’ll get their formed take on the topic at hand.

Occasionally, we realize we’ve become this person. Age will do it. Life experience. Compassion fatigue. Hopefully, when we see we have become the center of the universe, it’s just a stinging realization during a quiet drive home from dinner with friends and not how we’ve lived our adult lives.

I was with a person for a thirty-minute car ride to meet shared acquaintances at a minor league baseball game. I think he confused me with his biographer because I got a solid half-hour of details about his life, diet, and recent vacation. I have all those things, too, but like a lesser-known talk show guest who got bumped, there wasn’t time for me on the show tonight.

We arrived earlier than our friends and worked towards our seats. His commentary on preferred ballpark snacks might make it into the footnotes, but I don’t think it’s enough material for an entire chapter in the biography.

As we settled into our seats, I hoped anything would derail his tales of Little League prowess. As luck would have it, a stranger approached us both and told my friend he liked the major league team on the jersey he was wearing. The stranger added that, like the team, he was from out west and liked them from a young age. Undeterred by this potentially interesting opening salvo, my friend quickly broke in with his own reason for liking the team. The stranger followed up with the fact that he was near the ballpark for work and had a free night that evening and decided to stop over. He casually added he’s a rodeo clown, and his company’s rodeo didn’t have a show tonight.

Without missing a beat, my friend explained what he and I do for a living and why we’re there, but I simply couldn’t let him. I jumped in and asked the stranger “Wait, you’re a rodeo clown?, I have a million questions”.

He wasn’t a rodeo participant, a pretty straightforward role; he was this unusual side-act within the oldest action sport on earth. A character in a get-up that charges into the chaos and danger to help protect a rodeo participant.

I was slightly offended that my friend wasn’t interested in me, but when a rodeo clown sidled up to us, even that wasn’t enough to interest my friend. I felt weirdly less offended. I realized I could’ve been Neil Armstrong and wouldn’t have been asked a question.

This experience led me to an axiom, a bumper sticker-length truism for the rest of my life: If you ever meet a rodeo clown, stop talking and listen unless you are a rodeo clown.

Now, of course, I’m attempting to be funny. Conversations aren’t contests to win and shut down people who live more quiet lives. But this illustrates exaggeratedly that sometimes nothing can derail a person fighting for their worth.

Any mention of my friend’s self-absorption must be followed up with: I’ve been him. When I’m talking to people, I’ve felt a sudden contest emerge in me to gain worth, status, and consideration. I can need it like oxygen. I endlessly am trying to be interesting. I’m sure it’s exhausted people in my orbit. They don’t have a Substack to write about it (yet).

Let me encourage you to make a minor pivot if this feels relatable. You needn’t reorder all your input and interactions. Start small with this: Instead of trying to be interesting, be interested.

If someone says they just returned from vacation, don’t hijack their story if you’ve been there a bazillion times. Maybe even save the details that you’ve ever been there. Please give them the full spotlight. I’ve seen well-traveled people do this, and it’s actually lovely.

Feeling heard, seen, and honored will give people much more than being wowed by you or me. Giving attention is one of the highest forms of love.

Be well, Feral Souls.