Cruising

What if you didn’t have to introduce yourself?

One of the most stressful things those of us who stutter do on a regular basis is introduce ourselves. Being a covert stutterer other words were easy to avoid. A substitution here, a rearrangement of a sentence or phrase there. But never your name. That’s all you have, and you’re supposed to know it and be able to say it instantly. (This also applies to the names of your children … something that I’ve also had the displeasure of finding out). 

I’ve learned that once my name is finally out, the rest of the conversation isn’t too bad. (Especially now since I advertise, so I don’t even have to avoid words or phrases anyway). But I remember quite distinctly how stuttering through my name would cloud the rest of the conversation. I wouldn’t speak as much, would do lots of mental gymnastics to make sure the rest of my words would smoothly come out.

A few weeks ago my wife and I took a cruise. This was just my second, and it was quite enjoyable. I wondered though, that for a person who stutters, is meeting people on a cruise somewhat ideal? I never once introduced myself. Just started talking. And others were the same – they didn’t introduce themselves.

Ok, let me break this down and exactly how that even happened – I know how intimidating it can be to just start a conversation from nothing with a stranger.

There are many places on the ship where people will gather and line up for something or another. A coffee, a drink, an excursion. And they have no place to go, and neither do you. There are excursions that can be done off the ship – so a place to start a conversation is asking if they’ve gone on an excursion. Or which one they are going to do. Or how often they’ve cruised. Or if they’ve been to any of the shows.

At the end of the day when people are gathered, they’re generally tired. So you can make a comment like, “long day of relaxing, huh?” And then they’ll laugh and tell you about how they spent the entire day off the ship doing fun things that they’d never done before. Many people also wear t-shirts and hats from back home – you can ask about their teams. It was interesting just how much people opened up and told you about themselves.

Lately for me speaking to others has been about practice. And habit-breaking. When I was a kid I always associated opening my mouth with stuttering and struggling. Now I want to make the association between opening my mouth and learning and listening.