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Opinion crowns with an imperial voice

“I don’t know what to do with my computer, G.”

Laura and I were sitting in a quiet coffee shop at the edge of a busy mall. She always seemed to be frustrated with her computer: it was either running out of memory and wouldn’t let her upload the suggested updates, or its battery only lasted an hour or two before she had to plug it in again to recharge. “Battery again?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I’m leaving it plugged in whenever I use it now…” She cast a pair of despairing eyes in my direction; I had recently bought a new computer so my complaints were mainly about getting used to a different operating system. “I don’t know whether keeping it plugged in will wreck the battery; I’ve read different opinions about it.” She sighed noisily, as if the computer, or perhaps the universe, would take pity on her. “What do you think, G?”

Although I would normally leap into the fray with a hasty opinion, I merely shrugged. “It could…”

She nodded her head and mounted a little smile on her face. “Everybody seems to use a conditional clause at some stage in their descriptions of the workings of a computer, don’t they?”

“When you don’t really know, you hedge, eh?”

The smile disappeared, and she sighed again. “But what do you think, G? Should I get a new computer?”

I had wondered about that for months before taking the plunge and buying my new one, and Laura knew it. Still, the whole point of advice is to help while at the same time avoiding any responsibility for the consequences; I decided to equivocate. “The new ones are so expensive nowadays; you’ve got to be really sure you need one…”

She shook her head. “That’s not an answer, G, it’s an evasion.” She managed a token sip at her cold coffee, before she made a face and put it down again.

“You mean you want me to tell you what to do?” This was a side of Laura I rarely saw.

She rolled her eyes and tried to put a smile back on her face that didn’t suggest she was abdicating her putative dominance. “I mean I will consider whatever you suggest, and take it from there.”

I tried unsuccessfully to repress a sigh. Any suggestion I offered, however tentative, however disguised as a recommendation, could later be interpreted as a directive. Laura and I go back a long way; I even dated her for a while in university, until we both realized that she preferred someone on another team -or at least that was how she put it. We remained good friends, throughout the years, however; I’ve just learned to be careful around her. In a way, she was an important lesson for me: I try to gauge whether the person to whom I am listening actually wants advice, or just a sounding board on which to unload their concerns. By now, I can usually tell with her.

“So, what’s your opinion, G?” she said, arms now folded across her chest.

What the heck, I thought; I might as well fall on my own sword rather then hers. “Okay then, I think you should buy a new computer…” I purposely let her hear my ellipsis so she would understand my quandary.

She shook her head. “I can tell you don’t really mean that, G.”

She knew me too well; good thing I never married her. “Come on, Laura. I’m just leaving you with an option.”

Up went her eyes again. “I always had an option, G. I just wanted your opinion…”

“I just gave it to you.”

“Only under duress.”

She had a point, but Laura always put me under pressure. “Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t really know what would be best for you.” I thought about it between her issuing of a deep and stertorous sigh, and her changing the position of her arms across her chest. “If it were me, though, I’d buy a new computer.” I wasn’t really trying for a collaborative decision, and neither did she expect one; it was more of a guess about what she really hoped I would say. After all, neither of us knew much about the innards of a computer; the blind should probably avoid leading the blind. I just knew it left me open to a bitter rejoinder, but it was a game we often played.

She slowly shook her head as if I should be ashamed of myself. “G, you’ve had nothing but trouble with your new computer…”

An involuntary smile crept slowly across my face and I found myself taking a deep breath. “Did it ever occur to you to wonder whether I, too, might have needed advice?”

She chuckled at that. “Actually, you asked me whether you should buy a new computer a month or so ago, remember?”

I smiled, as if I’d finally trapped her. “And what did you tell me?”

She took a deep breath and thought about it for a moment. “I hedged the same as you, of course. I told you that it was your decision, but that you usually acted on impulse rather than on evidence anyway.”

“And did you stop me, Laura? Did you give me the benefit of your honest appraisal of the probable consequences…?” I felt that some more ellipses were justified.

“I seem to remember leaving it up to you, G. Everything has consequences, eh?”

My smile grew as I probed her cheeks with my eyes. I could see the beginnings of an embarrassed blush.

“Lord Ronald…?” was all she could think of replying.

I nodded; we’d both loved Stephen Leacock in our shared English Literature course in University. She was citing a reference from his Nonsense Novels: ‘Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.’

I nodded, her meaning obvious; it was strangely gratifying that we still thought the same way after all these years…

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