Text of My Speech Given in Communications Class

This is the text of my speech given last Thursday to my communications class. We were assigned to give a "conflict" speech, detailing a conflict which we had been involved in, and to bring to bear various methods and terminology from the course.

As to the actual events which transpire within the speech, I can only refer you to John Irving, who once wrote: "A fiction writer's memory is an especially imperfect provider of detail; we can always imagine a better detail than the one we can remember. The correct detail is rarely, exactly, what happened; the most truthful detail is what could have happened, or what should have happened."

Conflict Speech

Act I

I was once mistaken for Tyler Durden.

I'm in a bar in my hometown, just me and my cousin JR having a drink, Bruce Springsteen playing “Glory Days” on the jukebox. Red Sox kicking the Yankees ass on the flatscreen. A good night, you know. Nothing happening.

This guy comes sauntering across the bar, short guy, older, lanky kind of hair and a shirt with a little dashed line across the chest, says Must Be This Tall To Ride This Ride, which puts him in the market of midgets and twelve years olds. He gets up real close, looks right at me.

“You're Tyler Durden, aren't you?” he says to me.

My first thought is maybe I heard him wrong. He got my first name right, so maybe the guy actually knows me, one of those scenarios, you know you know the guy but you don't know where from, or maybe the whiskey's messing with my ears, I just heard him wrong.

So I give the guy a look.

(look)

“You're Tyler Durden,” he says.

This time it's not a question.

See, the problem with being mistaken for an imaginary character in a movie is you're not really sure if the guy thinks you're actually a fictional character, or if he thinks you're the actor who played the character in the film. There's a world of difference. In the one case, you're dealing with a drunk. In the other, you're dealing with a looney.

There happens to be an added layer when you're mistaken for a fictional movie character who isn't even real in the movie, a character who's actually a split-personality. In which case, it's possible you're talking to a crazy man who honestly believes that you're the fictional figment of the imagination of a crazy fictional movie character.

This whole line of thinking only occurred to me later, after the fight and after a few more whiskey sours. You drink enough whiskey you get philosophical, but at first the only thing I was really thinking was whether the guy thought I was Edward Norton or Bradd Pitt.

“You got the wrong guy,” I tell him.

Well, now he thinks about this a while. His eyes go kinda blank and watery, and I'm thinking this is the end of it, he's just gonna go away and get a little more plastered and go on home and sleep it off and forget about the whole thing.

Finally, his eyes focus and he's looking at me again.

“I'm gonna kick your ass,” he says.

Act II

Upon reflection, this was really the first escalation, that first turn which eventually led us out of the bar. I mean, we were all on our way to being best friends. Think about how many friendships start out in a bar, drowned in whiskey, Bruce rockin out, the Red Sox kicking ass. The guy already thought I was Brad Pitt. I admit, it would have meant building our relationship around a lie, but it's not like it's the first time in recorded history that would have happened.

Unfortunately, when a guy tells you he's gonna kick your ass, it kinda derails that Feel Good Train.

Way I figure it, the best thing to do is play like I didn't hear him. Maybe if he thought I hadn't heard he'd just forget he said it and be on his merry way.

This is the Non-Confrontational Approach to Conflict Management. In a bar in my hometown, this usually works. You keep your mouth shut, drink your drink, the night goes on

The guy leans in, says: “You wanna fight, Mr. Durden? I'll kick your ass.”

JR hears him this time. Takes a clean look at the guy and then says to me:

“You want me to kill this guy?”

JR just did two tours in Iraq. Sometimes I get the feeling he isn't happy to be home, being peaceful.

As a way of comparison, JR's suggestion could be headed under the Aggressive Approach to Conflict Management.

I tell him no, the guy's just got the wrong person. Mistaken identity. Not a problem.

“Let's go outside and punch each other.”

The guy seems to have a one track mind.

“That's alright, buddy,” I tell him. “I'm not in the mood.”

He thinks about this a minute. His eyes squint up again, getting all watery. It's like a little storm is going on inside his head. A small storm, and eventually it clears and he comes back to the world.

“Let's go out back and punch each other,” he says. “You can hit me first.”

Now, at this point I think it's worth illustrating various communication models. You've heard about the Action Model, the Interaction Model and the Transaction Model. I would like to add another communication model which I think the textbook has neglected. I call it the Missing in Action Model, and it looks something like this.

(model drawing)

It is this particular communication model which I was dealing with, and it was rather wearing my patience pretty thin.

Act III

This is really where the second major escalation occurred. We said a few more things to each other which just got bounced off into outer space, the messages not getting through. Eventually, we decided that JR had a set of boxing gloves out in his truck and we ought to go out back and clear this all up.

Now, I want to say that I could have stayed right there on that bar stool. I could have, and there wasn't much chance of any further escalation. But a number of events transpired which, when put together, made it hard to stay seated. First, the Yankees scored three runs and tied up the ballgame. This was a dark omen. Second, Elton John came on the jukebox, claiming that Saturday night was alright for fighting.

Third, and most importantly though, was that I was Tyler Durden. And the Tyler Durden Approach to Conflict Management didn't include going out the front door.

So out the back we went.

If you've never boxed with only one set of gloves, it works like this. Each guy gets a glove. If you get the left handed glove and you're right handed, well you're just SOL. So you got one hitting hand, and the other goes behind your back.

It's a laborious way to fight. With one hand behind your back you got your chin wide open for the other guy to chop away at. This means if you want to avoid getting hit you gotta shuck your head or move your feet, neither of which are things you particularly feel like doing when you're intoxicated.

What it boils down to is you get hit a lot.

I hit the guy a few times on the nose. You hit a guy square, between the eyes, sting him a little, he usually calls it quits. No one really likes getting hit. Some guys think they do, but nobody really likes it.

My buddy, however, well, he's been staring down the bottle all night, so he ain't feeling anything at all.

He's just taking it, like he's got no place else to be, nothing else to do all night.

So, finally, I cheated.

I felt bad about it afterward. But I felt like it was the kind of thing Tyler Durden would have done.

I faked him a few with my gloved hand, and then came round and clocked him with him bare hand.

It wasn't gentlemanly, but it worked. The guy went down on his ass, his nose a little bloody, and that was the end of it.

I helped the guy up and we took off our gloves. I told him to come back in, I'd buy him a drink, but he said he couldn't stay and he wandered off.

Dénouement

JR and I went back into the bar and ordered another whiskey.

I thought about it for a while, and I could have done it differently.

Even though my Non-Confrontational Approach wasn't accomplishing much, I could have stayed on my stool.

Or I could have walked out the front door, an Avoidance measure, still Non-Confrontational.

I could have attempted a more Cooperative Style, could have asked the guy if there was another solution that would have suited him. We could have brainstormed alternatives on a cocktail napkin, passed it around the bar for votes on the best course of action.

I drank my whiskey and thought about all of this. And I determined two things.

First, it's a well known adage that in nine fights out of ten the guy who wins is the guy who throws the first punch. So, next time someone comes up to me in a bar and asks if I'm Tyler Duren, I'm gonna hit him right there and then.

Second, the guy definitely thought I was Brad Pitt. I don't look anything like Edward Norton.