Over the weekend I attended an event that included an icebreaker game. We were to introduce ourselves not just with our name, but with an interesting fact no one would ever guess about us.
I may not have mentioned this before, but I dislike icebreakers. Intensely. I suppose that’s because I’m an introvert, and such things force me to step outside my shell—that’s the point, right? So I’m sitting there trying to think of something about myself that another person might find remotely engaging.
All I come up with are things about my family. How my grandmother’s hair reportedly turned white overnight, after the sudden death of her young and only daughter. How she survived the deaths of three of her four children, lived through two world wars, went through a nasty divorce and eventually married again, a man who worked on the Panama Canal and fought in World War One. How my father persuaded her to sign a permission form for him to join the Navy when he was just 17 years old (I cannot imagine doing that for my son).
Then there’s my dad himself, who started his Navy ship experience on the USS Oklahoma which was doomed to sink at Pearl Harbor. But he was no longer on that ship then, although it turned out to be a delay and not an exemption from war tragedy. He’d volunteered for Asiatic duty and worked in the engine room on a gun boat on the Yangtze River—until his boat was sent to help defend the Philippines, where he was taken prisoner by the Japanese and spent the next three and a half years in various Japanese prison camps.
You know what I’ve noticed about interesting lives? They certainly fit the old Chinese curse about living in interesting times. There is obviously a direct correlation between tragedy and interesting, even if one of the positive results can be evidence of being a survivor.
Of course none of those interesting facts were about me, so I couldn’t use any of this. Since it was a group of parents whose kids have one kind of disability or another, I didn’t want to share our diagnosis story because presumably every other parent there had one as well—it wasn’t something we wouldn’t be able to guess about one another. As tragic as it was to learn I was the carrier for a genetic disease and that for a time we feared my daughter could be a carrier too, while I was pregnant with another child who could have been affected as well, (neither of which turned out to be true) I avoided that interesting phase of my life.
All I could come up with is that I’m an author. Even today in this age of widespread publishing made easier and more affordable by online publishing, people still seem to find this interesting. But I felt as if I’d cheated a little, since writing is something God wired me to do. It’s a job, and I firmly believe whenever we find the job God wired us to do it’s the most natural thing for us to do. I guess that’s why I don’t feel like taking credit for it, it’s too much a part of me and my everyday life.
Perhaps you like icebreakers better than I do. This may be one you either want to play, suggest, or at least be prepared for!
I had to laugh when I read this, because I hate icebreakers as intensely as you do. I generally draw a blank in the moment or discard my real answer to say something stupid or mundane. I’d much rather tell the “real story” to one or two interested people, not an entire group of strangers!
I’m with you about narrowing the audience to a person or two rather than a whole group. It’s hard to remember everyone’s story, too, but in a small setting it could be easier. And I’m glad I have such fine company in the not-liking-icebreakers department. 🙂