24 November 2015 "Forming the Perfect Conversation"

Written for a Writing course at Loyola University Maryland, this essay was based on the assignment to create a metaphor for tutoring in the Loyola Writing Center. 

Two decades on this earth and I still haven’t figured out how to form the perfect conversation. It’s an art, I know that, but I’ve never done very well in drawing. It’s a matter of push and pull, and sometimes I find myself feeling a bit overwhelmed. Am I talking too much? Am I engaged enough? Am I wearing my emotions on my face? It’s a never-ending quest.

            Being a tutor in the Writing Center is a lot like trying to have a perfect conversation. The perfect tutoring session doesn’t exist, it never will. When a tutee walks in with some sort of paper for you to examine, you really don’t have any time to prepare for the experience with them. Hell, you don’t have time to prepare how you are going to feel walking into the Center, let alone the feeling you’ll get when someone else walks in.

            Have you ever talked with someone—or should I say have you ever been talked at by someone—and not been able to get a word in edgewise? They’ve got some story to tell, some crazy thing they just have to get to you in as many words as it takes, in as much time as it takes. It doesn’t matter if you interject, doesn’t matter whether you provide some sort of personal connection to their experience; any anecdote you generously offer is shut down as soon as it leaves your mouth. It’s not like you don’t exist—after all, here you are being the active listener—but instead it’s as if the person speaking to you doesn’t believe you can speak; he doesn’t believe you have anything to say.

            This person? In the Writing Center, he’s the one who thinks he knows how to do your job better than you do. Or he’s the one who’s so nervous he can’t stop chattering. He’s the one who can’t find enough words to explain exactly what it is he needs from you. It’s the student who takes charge of the conversation, and as frustrating as it is, I’ve learned the common courtesy that comes with being a tutor must always take charge. Sure, I can be professional, but I’m just as unlikely to tell him to shut the hell up so I can talk as I am to walk away from the guy giving me the most important monologue of his life. It isn’t his fault, it’s just the flaw of a tutor-tutee relationship. It’s the flaw of being a human being who can talk, one who can listen. It’s the flaw of conversation.

            The polar opposite of this kind of conversationalist is the speech minimalist. She’s silent, but seems to constantly be thinking. What she’s thinking about? You probably won’t know; she certainly won’t be telling you. If you’re anything like me, you’ll try to fill the silence. Talk about your day, the thing that reminded you of your dog, the fact that you just remembered your laundry has been done for four hours and you haven’t picked it up. She’ll nod, maybe smile. But she won’t engage with you. The work is all in your hands.

            In the Writing Center this girl is one of my least favorites. Maybe she’s nervous, maybe she’s too proud, maybe she just takes a more silent approach to life. The fact is I don’t know, and the minutes with a girl like this seem to drag like hours as I keep looking at the clock. I’ve found silence can be pretty effective sometimes, but in situations as a Writing Center tutor, I certainly need a little something to work with.

In a conversation I suppose it’s a bit easier to avoid this type of person. Maybe it is in the Writing Center too, if you time things right. But overall? It’s important to know how to work with this person, to have patience within silence, to be willing to embrace the quiet. Not everyone on a college campus works like a golden retriever, smiling and always willing to be your friend. I haven’t quite gotten comfortable with this fact, but I suppose being uncomfortable sometimes is a part of life, right? Part of living with conversation, and certainly part of living as a Writing Center tutor.

            I know a couple people that I would label as the “overs.” Overemotional, oversharers, and sometimes just as a whole over the top. There’s nothing wrong with being wholly extroverted, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with letting people know all about what you’re thinking. But at a certain point it can get to be a little much. The overs? They make me feel overwhelmed. I don’t know what kind of relationship they’re seeking with me, telling me about the people who haven’t texted them back, the things they’ve done in private, the crazy thing someone did that makes them crazy. I’m one to hold onto my cards until I truly feel comfortable enough to share them, but that is only one way to be.

            In the Writing Center I think the most common over is the one who spends a few extra minutes trying to explain his professor to me. He wants this, she does this annoying thing with grading, you wouldn’t believe the way he does this. It’s almost as if they expect universal recognition of how they feel. Oh, she’s a tutor, I imagine the over thinking. She knows exactly what this writing experience is like for me, why wouldn’t she know? The way to approach a session with an over? Ask specific questions. It’s a lot like the person who won’t stop talking—you must constantly rein them in. At a certain point you can approach it as a listener, but just like in a conversation, you have to know your limits. There’s only so much you really need to hear, and if it’s not you that stops the over, you’ll just tumble down a listener’s rabbit hole, hearing about things you never even wanted to think about.

            There’s an infinite number of flaws that make the quest for the perfect conversation insurmountable, and there are just as many flaws that make the perfect tutoring session far out of any tutor’s reach. These three examples are by no means the most important ones, just the ones I have personally experienced. It’s a difficult thing to work in the Writing Center, and it’s definitely a difficult thing to have a truly successful conversation. Everything is touch and feel, and as a tutor and a conversationalist the only way to approach is with an open mind.

            But the most important thing to remember? In the conversation or in the tutoring session, your responsibility is never to be perfect. It’s to do things the best way you know how. It’s to approach individuals individually and to remember that each tutoring session and each conversation will inevitably be flawed. Putting yourself in awkward, imperfect conversations is far superior to having no conversation at all.