What do you call it when you’re about to jump into a conversation but someone beats you to it? Mary, a caller and self-described introvert from Indianapolis, calls it getting seagulled, inspired by an episode of The Simpsons in which nerdy Lisa works up the courage to participate in a conversation, but is interrupted at the last second by a screeching seagull. In her new book, The Introvert’s Way, author Sophia Dembling refers to this experience as getting steamrolled. A different kind of interruption is getting porlocked, a reference to the visitor from Porlock who interrupted Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s reverie while he was writing the poem Kubla Khan and made him forget the rest of what he wanted to write. Have a better term for these unfortunate experiences? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Seagulling”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Mary from Indianapolis.
Hi, Mary. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Mary.
Hi.
How can we help you?
Well, actually, I was calling because I have come up with a way to describe an awkward situation, and I just thought it would be something that other people would be interested in hearing about in case they’re going through something similar.
I was a painfully awkward child and always found that it was difficult to engage in conversations in a group because oftentimes the louder people would interrupt. And then I would wonder, like, is it okay to start my sentence over or should I just give up?
And once while watching an episode of The Simpsons, I saw that Lisa, the young daughter, came upon a group of people and she wanted to be cool and try to make friends, so she walked toward them. And as she was starting to say hello, a group of seagulls came through and interrupted her, so she ran and hid behind a pole. She later went on to successfully join the group, but I since have called that kind of situation being seagulled or seagulling. If someone interrupts you while you’re trying to start a conversation or join one, and it’s kind of caught on in my group of friends, I just thought it would be something fun to share.
I like it.
I do too.
It’s very accurate. Seagulled, yeah. Even people who aren’t that shy have this problem breaking into a group, right?
Right.
That’s crazy. Yeah. You’re, you’ve just worked up the guts to talk to somebody who is, I don’t know, maybe you think that they’re really cool or sexy or they could do do you some good in your career. And then sure enough, somebody like swoops in there and just takes your spot and your line and your moment.
Right. And you have that moment, moment of panic, like, is it okay for me to be part of it?
Yeah. And then, and then you’re playing catch up, right? Because you want to bring the conversation back to where it was before. And it, and it is, it’s like, I don’t know if you’ve ever held a piece of food up at the beach and a seagull comes and swipes it.
That hasn’t happened to me.
But that’s exactly how you feel.
And I think that’s a great word, seagull.
Seagull, yeah.
I like it a lot.
The only other thing I’ve heard like that is steamrolled. There’s a new book called The Introvert’s Way by Sophia Dembling, and she talks about this and how you’re always playing catch up. And, you know, I would say, too, that, Mary, I don’t know if you feel this way, but I think that sometimes you can actually seem smarter that way. You know, do you have this experience where you’re in a meeting and you don’t say anything, you don’t say anything, don’t say anything, and then finally you say one thing and it sounds really wise and people think that you were being wise all along?
Yes, and that’s the great thing about being a shy, quiet person. You occasionally come up with something and everyone thinks you’re some sort of genius because of it.
Yeah, exactly. Quality, not quantity, right?
Right.
Yeah, but I like this, and your friends have picked it up as well, Seagull.
Yeah. Originally, they made fun of me for it, but now I have several people, including my boss at work, saying it. So I think it has potential.
Nice.
Well, we’ll help you spread it around, all right?
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Mary.
Thank you for calling. Bye-bye.
All right. Bye-bye.
This reminds me of a related word. Do you know what porelocking is?
Porelocking. How are you spelling that?
P-O-R-L-O-C-K-I-N-G. Porelocking.
It sounds like something I would put on my face.
You’re going to remember this anecdote. When Samuel Taylor Coleridge was writing Kublai Khan, supposedly he had this fever dream and he was whipping it out, and then he was interrupted by the man from Porlock.
Yes.
And then when he got back to his work about an hour later, he couldn’t remember what he was writing. It went away.
So he got 54 lines down and that was it.
Might have been the best poem ever.
Oh, gosh.
He got seagulled.
Yeah.
I like that seagulled.
Well, to be porlocked is to be interrupted in a bothersome way.
Yeah.
Well, call us 877-929-9673.
