Perfectly acceptable pause in conversation ruined by someone saying, “This is Awkward”

By Morgan Pantuck

Oct. 18, 2013

A perfectly acceptable pause in conversation was ruined last Tuesday when first-year Dwight Mulligan blurted out his singularly unnecessary catchphrase: “Well, uh… this is awkward.”

It began innocently: a handful of college students engaging in casual conversation about their Hum courses. However, a brief moment eventually too place in which none of the participants were speaking. Mulligan, a member of the MTV generation who perceives any lack of stimulus as profoundly disturbing, immediately began to feel overwhelmed by the modicum of silence. His outburst, an attempt to alleviate the imagined awkwardness, actually managed to double it in the most ironic way possible.

“I thought my skin was going to crawl off of my body,” commented Hitchcock resident Samantha Lappen. “One minute I was bonding with my fellow peers—the next, I felt more embarrassed than the time my grandfather called my Asian-American friend ‘chopstick boy.’”

“His words had literally the opposite of his intended effect,” noted John Filo, a contributor to the dialogue. “It was like he proposed to his girlfriend with an elaborate romantic gesture, and instead of saying, “yes,” she immediately burst into flames.”

Verbal communication, a staple of human interaction, typically ebbs and flows in a natural pattern of heightened discussion punctuated by pauses, during which people reflect on the topic at hand before their chit-chat reignites and continues. Mulligan’s conversation would have effortlessly picked up in approximately three seconds, had he abstained from commenting on the wholly fictitious awkwardness. Instead, it tragically screeched to an abrupt and humiliating halt. “It died faster than the dreams of an Ivy League reject,” explained Robert White, remembering the event with tears in his eyes. “That bastard”, he added, shaking his head.

At press time, Mulligan was unavailable for comment, as he was busy persistently apologizing for something that had already been forgiven.