Grim conversations with Soviet people, is it common?

[k_of_t]

It is a birthday of my lady friend and we are sitting at the table with her Soviet parents. We are laughing and enjoying ourselves until the mother says something about someone having been stubbed or rapped -- right next to their house, right in the park where the birthday-girl runs every morning. Conversation ceases for a moment. When it comes

Comments

[tearslake]

recently i've had a really good mood over several days in a row. funnily enough, i have noticed, that i am subconsciously trying to bring it down. i found it hard to smile on the street, as well as during conversations with other people. reason number one was obvious: subconsciously i wanted to be like the others. the same might apply to the people you talking about in your post: they are under pressure of confirmity. are russians any different as a social group? maybe. but with canadians i've noticed that once you get to know them closer, they start open up, and i've gotto tell you, it's not pretty.

[k_of_t]

You bring up a very interesting issue of people attempting to level their internal mood with the average mood of the group they are in. I have seen that happening and I think this phenomen deserves a post of its own.

In my the story presented in my post the deal was not so much about the pressure of confirmity, as it was a issue of a topic being (or not being) appropriate for the ocasion.

In my oppinion a birthday dinner/party is there so that people could create an atmosphere of joy in the group. If I am right than bringing up a "negative" topic is wrong. If I am wrong than bringing a "negative" topic is very much OK. What do you think about it?

[tearslake]

in that case my opinion is very simple - you are right. i was just thinking about the roots of the described behaiviour... did you come up with any other reasons for it?

[k_of_t]

I think some people, in this case Soviet people, allow a greater fluctuation between negative and positive conversation topics. It seems to them the overall evening was fairly OK.

One of the reasons this happens is because, as far as I know, they do not have a specific belief: "unless you conduct business or engage in a serious problem-solving, what you say should please your conversation partner."

That's what I came up so far.