If witty banter was made into a film…(spoiler - I dislike banter)

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Another train of thought took over my boredom today, as I had a long distance journey, & that’s thinking time for me. The thread in my mind was all based upon the “witty banter” type of conversations that people often have in day to day life. I have never been much of a fan, despite being able to sometimes come up with a return comment fast enough to make people laugh back. If I drink it gets easier, if not I struggle unless in the right frame of mind. For some reason, possibly as a result of my childhood years, I see through banter most of the time (instead of what I should do, which is to relax & go with the flow). My perception of it could be likened to the Two Ronnies sketches where every comment was a double-entendre. Funny to begin with, and then the record sticks & it goes on & on until it’s time to escape. I loved those old sketch shows, but they always showed the extreme version, to point out the absurdity of it. The thing is, now and again banter can be funny, but not all the time….at least that’s my level of tolerance. Does that then make me boring? Yes it probably does —especially to those who can only talk in riddles & hints with a laugh trigger inserted in every round.

Anyhow, my thought today was this: In most films, the dialogue is often clear, where people say only what is necessary to get the message across. The characters say what they mean, listen to each other, & argue as I imagine real life ought to be. This is difficult for me to explain, but what I mean is that people are “present” and are “in the moment”. They’re not deflecting their lines with jokes & banter all the time. That would be boring and not make the film watchable. For sitcoms, yes it works well (eg Friends, Cheers, etc etc), and of course the old comedy shows of yesteryear. One Hollywood star does come to mind — Ryan Reynolds. He seems to have mastered the art of joking in films, and he gets away with it.

I still haven’t quite managed to explain what I am trying to say, but it’s that growing up, watching TV & films, I noticed that everything has to be perfect in the script for the actors to be watchable. There’s no room for stuttering, spoken mistakes etc unless that’s part of the story. So that’s different to real life where all conversations are fluid & unscripted. Somehow, the life of films had a big impact on my childhood, they made me think & act like they do on the screen — by that I mean to converse in a straightforward openly communicated way. But in real life, mainly in situations of banter, I feel lost, as I just never got enough “training” in that side of things. I grew up in a small village, & things seemed more simple back in those days. Banter just seems unreal conversation to me. It makes others laugh & connect, but often I see those connections falter once they start to discover the real personalities behind the facade.

Compared to on screen however, in real life, it appears that there are many people that get by socially just by banter. Go to a pub for instance, there’s often an atmosphere where banter works well. It’s the right place to banter by the way, where people are winding down & de-stressing. However what I find often is that unless you’re good at banter, you get left out in many social situations. One time, I was chatting with a friend in a local pub, & I went to the loo. Standing there emptying my bladder, a guy walks up to the urinal next to mine & looks at me, says “cheer up it might never happen”. I said in return “this is my normal happy face, that’s not really my fault is it”. My banter reply (said with no smile) soon stopped him grinning. He was bevvied up & looking to start some sort of argument. That’s just one case that comes to mind. It’s a way to make fast friends, but also used as a way to be passive aggressive without standing out on the radar too much. I think it’s probably the normal common social stereotype for the UK, but not everyone likes it all the time.

The other reason people resort to it is that they can skip any serious conversation, & stay surface level. Do people who rely on this form of socialising actually have something to hide? I don’t know the answer to that, but suspect they are insecure in some way. As an introvert, can you learn to join in with others using this as a main way to converse? Yes I’m sure you can, but how well you can do it will likely depend on how much you’re willing to let go of the things you enjoy talking about in depth, & instead put on the persona that might feel disingenuous.

What are your thoughts on this? It would be interesting to know if I’m in the minority when it comes to not being particularly fond of banter.

Thanks for reading!