People are funny. I’m not talking ‘funny’ as in ‘they make me laugh’ funny. I’m referring to people’s quirks when they inter-act (or very often don’t) with other people in a normal everyday conversation.
As tolerant as you are, I bet you’ve been annoyed by people whose behaviour made you promise to never spend another moment in their company.
A friend of mine recently asked me if I knew what a ‘Non-Reactor’ was.
I didn’t, but as soon as he explained what he meant, I knew exactly what he was talking about.
A veteran writer and long-time observer of human behaviour, he explained a ‘Non-Reactor’ is someone so wrapped up in themselves they’re incapable of reacting to anything you tell them with a polite “That’s very interesting” or “How awful for you!”
“Tell me more!” is, naturally, not in their vocabulary.
Instead, the second you stop talking, they jump in with a (usually unrelated) story of their own, giving the impression they haven’t absorbed what you’ve just told them.
Your words are like bullets bouncing off Superman’s chest.
And the ‘Non-Reactor’ maintains this throughout what is less a conversation than a contest on their part, to tell the most interesting story.
A funny example of a celebrity ‘Non-Reactor’ concerns Sir Christopher Lee.
A man not known for hiding his light under a bushel, shall we say…
Attending a weekend pro-am golf tournament, his ‘Non-Reaction’ to other people’s stories was to immediately relate them to his own career.
This annoyed all the other players, including Jimmy Tarbuck and Kenny Lynch, who tried to think up a story that Mr. Lee couldn’t possibly relate to himself.
On the Sunday morning, Jimmy and Kenny were having breakfast in the hotel when Kenny suddenly said, “I know how we can get him!”
As Mr. Lee joined them at the table, Kenny pretended to be engrossed in his newspaper and exclaimed, “Look at this, Tarby! They’ve found Adolf Hitler alive in the Bolivian jungle!”
Without missing a beat, Mr. Lee said: “I was asked to play Hitler in a film!”
Kenny and Tarby’s response is, sadly, not on record!