Showing contempt in (not) conversing

I was eating a barbeque place for lunch the other day.  I was by myself, so I sat by a monitor on the wall to watch the NFL channel.  About five tables away three men were engaged in a conversation they were really enjoying.  They were telling stories about the people they worked with.

I like to hear samples of conversations because it reveals a lot about the individuals engaged in those conversations.  One of the really noticeable, very predictable behaviors of language is that it follows one of the world's oldest observations: familiarity breeds contempt.  A number of societies have seen this to be true, even making it into Aesop's fables, The Lion and the Fox.  Shakespeare uses it in The Merry Wives.  Mark Twain is famous for saying it and adding "children" to the quote.  Latin works have it.  It's a time-tested saying.

So the men "talked up a storm" we might say.  What about others in the restaurant who were eating around me.  Well, it was almost 2:00 in the afternoon, so there were not many people in the place.  However, after I had been there about 15 minutes, two couples came in separately.  One was a couple in their mid-20s it appeared, the other a couple in their mid-60s.

If I follow the line of thought used in the age-old observation, the younger couple would have not been together long enough to have contempt for each other.  But, the older couple would show contempt.  As I listened to the younger couple's snippets that were loud enough to hear, I could hear laughter, animated stories, a number of questions, a lot of short answers, but very little silence.  The older couple came in sat down, began eating, looked around at the empty tables, watched TV, but did not talk to each other.  In the 25 minutes they were there, they spoke twice to each other, that I was aware of, and then only a one turn exchange.

I see this pattern again and again.  It's an amazing pattern.  The very reason conversation exists is to share and ask for information.  When a person gets to the point that the reason for conversation's existence is not enough, then (s)he should not waste another person's time.  (S)He should exit before the point of contempt.  Society has a lot of people wasting others' time.  I would rather be around people I want to share with or want to ask questions of.  I can be by myself the other times.