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Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
5
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Articles In This Section:
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
1
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
2
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
3
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
4
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
5
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
6
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
7
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
8
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
9
· Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques - part
10
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Oh, that one learned that trick early in life! One fall, I wore a handed-down suit in school. Its descent was noticeable. One fellow, not really evil at heart, for he is a priest today, caused me an unbelievable amount of shame and suffering by frequently saying, "What material, eh. Will never wear out. Grandfather wore it, father wore it, and it is still as good as new." It crushed me every time. It hurt me so much that I could never manage a "comeback." Yet had I just once said to him: "You are right, Joe. It is, of course, handed down — and I suppose looks a bit peculiar. But we are a large family, and I don't like to hint to my parents that I mind," I am sure such an answer would have checked his teasing, not only on that point, but on similar ones. I am deeply convinced that the best approach to painful teasing is to make a clean breast of the true, even if unjust, part of it, very humbly — and not resentfully. A man who learns to admit a charge, instead of fighting it, has a great technique for self-protection — and for developing friends who will rise to defend him.
The I-give-up approach is perhaps the only way to meet and check teasing on points which are unbearably distasteful or painful to us. But that method also cuts the conversation short on that point. If we did that on all points, we would become conversational wallflowers. A really good, sociable person is one who has reduced the number of things upon which he is too touchy to be teased, who has learned to be philosophical about his shortcomings and peculiarities so that he can gracefully accept teasing. The baldhead who invites teasing about it is much more popular than a towhead who doesn't. A person must try to overcome his sensitiveness. He might make a list of things about which he is touchy now, and resolve in the next year to reduce the number. From a great many, I now have only two. I hope to get over these too — it seems impossible, but only a few years ago there were an additional three I thought I never could overcome.
If you want to be a welcome conversationalist, it is better to be a person who invites teasing and reacts gracefully to it, than to be the teaser. It is said of Lincoln that while he "liked to tell a joke on others, he also had the rare faculty of being able to appreciate one on himself" (Abraham Lincoln, ed. Edward Wagenknecht [New York: Creative Press, 1947], p. 575). This "rare faculty" is one a good conversationalist positively must strive for. The way to react to teasing and so to stimulate the conversation wittily is to twist the shaft directed against one into a sort of compliment, no matter how farfetched. A bald person can retort, "Why, my long hard thinking is beginning to show. I notice it doesn't show on you!" This will be fun for everyone, promote the talk. A freckled person might retort with mock meekness, "Yes, I suffer from a curious affinity with the sun — forces me to reflect sunlight all about — even on those unworthy of it." A color-blind person can say, "Just think how much pain I am spared when I have to look at your neckties. And how much pain I can give you with mine — and that with no malice aforethought!" A fat girl might say, "Just think how much more the fellow who marries me will get for his money." If I had not been so sensitive about my handed-down suit, and had answered, "Can I help it if my family goes way back and I have to sit on its patches?" a stream of most probably highly good-natured banter would have been provoked.
Related terms include improving public speaking and improve exercises.
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