Pleased to Meet You! I’ve Got No Social Skills.
The confessional mode of writing has never been my strong suit—one of the reasons writing personal essays for college applications has rattled my bone-bag. For there is always a chance that I will go beyond the necessary, salutary practice of self-reflection and veer into off-putting revelation. Teenagers (or is it just me?) tend to vacillate wildly between extreme vanity and extreme shame; one moment feeling we are the best, the next feeling we are totally unworthy.
Teenagers today are exceptionally accomplished. A standard high-achiever has by their seventeenth year built a backyard apiary for the preservation of local bees, designed an app for monitoring impending earthquakes, performed an original symphony. But as the social and political critic David Brooks has said, they have never been more alienated, distrusting, fragile, or socially inept.
Because many of us are driven by shame, fear, and self-loathing, we will work terribly hard to meet expectations, which have never been higher for getting into college on the basis of academic merit and extracurricular prowess, but which have never been lower for interacting with friends, parents, teachers, and strangers. My wickedly smart, funny, multi-talented best friend—truly, an impressive person—was struck dumb by the fact that I could easily talk to the contractor working on her house. Our volleyball rolled into his work area; I gave a quick apology and chatted back and forth with the guy for a minute. “How did you do that?” she asked. “Like talk to him?”
Probably because that is a skill my parents expect me to have. “Usefully arranging your face,” as my mom calls it, is essential. One should be able to register signs of understanding or incomprehension; to reply to someone who asks you a question; to hold comfortable eye-contact, even with imposing adults; to chuckle at jokes, especially the bad ones.
I am a proficient translator of Latin; I can analyze a passage of literature; I can even calculate a z-test statistic for a normal distribution. But wouldn’t it be better if I could drive a fast car, cook an awesome meal without anxiety, give strangers directions in a foreign city?
People are always telling me that normal high school is where you learn your key interpersonal, romantic, and friendship skills. I think the assumption that good habits about how to treat people diplomatically (with respect and dignity) come out of high school isn’t really accurate. Maybe that was more likely pre-pandemic—really, pre-internet—but I’m not sure we can say that now.
I agree with David Brooks that the fundamental skills of conversation, understanding, even flirting, are on the decline in my generation. And I don’t think any one of us should be considered accomplished until our skills in those areas match the proficiencies we brandish on our CVs.
