March 27, 2009

Once, after holding season tickets for years, I requested new seats because the people sitting three rows behind me were too loud.
I know, I know... everybody's supposed to cheer loudly and enthusiastically at football games.
But these folks simply never let up, season after season.
Sometime around the third quarter of every game, as their liquid refreshments kicked in, they became louder, more obnoxious and ultimately unbearable.
The worst part for me came when they decided to verbally single me out -- to everyone within earshot -- for not joining in their frivolity.
And, trust me, everyone "within earshot" covered a wide area.

So after a few seasons of that, I changed seats, moving to the other side of the stadium.
Even then, I often sensed I could still hear their voices and wisecracks across the field.
My wife insists it was just my imagination.

Occasionally in movie theaters I've changed seats because people sitting nearby are talking at full volume.
Seems to me, this problem of "loud talkers" in theaters is getting worse.
I notice people are even talking on cellphones while the movie is playing.
Not too many years ago, ushers would have escorted the noisy people out... but, alas, there are no more movie ushers.

All this came to mind the other day when I read an article in England's Lincolnshire Echo.
The online newspaper ran a story about a couple asked to leave a theatrical performance... a comedy... because of their loud, too frequent laughter.
Even to me, that seems a little harsh since it was a comedy.... but apparently they were disrupting the play's performers by laughing in all the wrong places, even when nothing funny was happening.
Maybe their beverages were kicking in as well.

I have a sneaky suspicion that such forced laughter -- or loud, inappropriate behavior -- is a smoke screen to conceal a person's true feelings, or their discomfort in dealing with the emotions at hand.

Maybe those people laughing outrageously at that play needed to cover the fact that they were -- or weren't -- genuinely amused.
Maybe those people in the football grandstands were camouflaging their deep emotional connection -- or lack of real connection -- to the home team.
And maybe those loud talkers in movie theaters can't handle the truth.... that a movie might actually touch their heart.

Who can forget the classic episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show where Mary starts laughing convulsively during the funeral for Chuckles the Clown.
She's embarrassed and struggling....
Until the presiding clergyman tells her it's OK, that Chuckles would have wanted her to laugh.
That's when she starts sobbing uncontrollably.
Human behavior is often hard to figure.

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