Concept:
Face is related to our perceived self-concept and how we want others to perceive us and our worth. Facework or “face-saving communication” is designed to prevent loss of face and restore face if lost. Basically, our face is what we want others to see about ourselves and how we want them to see it. We have the ability to change our face depending on how we want to present ourselves (ie: casual, professional, etc), and we also have the ability to manage our face with facework techniques such as overlooking the incident, responding with humor, offering an apology, giving an explanation, or physically trying to fix it. Although we may not actively notice it, we are all constantly trying to “save face” and protect the way we want to be perceived.
Example:
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to engage in some serious facework. I had been making a habit of checking the weather for the next day before I went to bed, that way I had a general idea of what I should wear the next morning. However, it never occurred to me to take into account the strength of the wind when checking the weather even though I tend to wear a lot of skirts because I was usually pretty good at managing fly-away skirts on windy days. So the morning of the Incident (as I will now always call it), I ignored weather.com and opted for a new pleated skirt that I was really excited to wear. This seemed like a perfectly good idea until the middle of the day when the weather betrayed me.
The problem of the wind started when I was sitting with my best friend, Brett (who is a girl), and our mutual friend Rigel, on the strange half-circle structure between the 100 and 300 buildings that I will from here on out refer to as the circle thingy for lack of a better term. What I had never noticed before was that the area housing the circle thingy is basically a wind tunnel of mass embarrassment, so when the wind picked up I was thoroughly unprepared. Since I was only leaning against the circle thingy, my skirt was only somewhat held down at the back, but the front was unprotected, so when a gust of wind travelled in my direction and half the student population with it, my skirt flew up in my face and I proceeded to flash the whole of Trident. Not just once, mind you, seeing as pleated skirts are the wild mustangs of the clothing world. I couldn’t hold my skirt down from all sides, I was directly facing the wind, and the last thing the wind was doing was calming. I employed Brett’s help in getting to the other side of the circle thingy and therefore, ceased the flashing, but I managed to show off my underwear and stockings at least six more times before I could succeed in getting to a more manageable spot. At this point, Rigel was looking everywhere but at me going, “I didn’t see anything!” and Brett was telling me how “not that bad” it was. But it was “that bad” and even if Rigel didn’t see anything, the rest of the students walking by and staring at me certainly had.
Obviously, of all the faces I want to present to the world, none of them include coming off as a “frequent-flasher” (which, unfortunately, does not award you with points like frequent flyer miles), but I tried to handle the situation with humor. Instead of crying (which I very well could have at that point) I was laughing, making fun of myself, and apologizing dramatically to the world. I joked with Brett and Rigel saying, “Well, now that we’ve been through this together, we’re true friends!” I tried to make light of a really embarrassing situation.
Analysis:
From this situation, I learned that while we all wish facework wasn’t necessary, using facework to handle a situation with humor can help to ease the humiliation. By making jokes about it myself, I not only made myself more comfortable with the situation, but also Brett and Rigel. If I would have responded with tears, the situation would have become more serious and therefore, harder to move past or forget. I think, overall, as embarrassing as the Incident was, it was a good experience for me because at least I’ve learned how to properly use facework to my advantage and save face from an unfortunate scenario. I don’t think I would change the way I responded to the face-threatening incident, but I would like to go back and wear jeans instead of a pleated skirt on that day. Not only did I learn how to fine-tune my facework, but I also acquired an embarrassing, but wildly entertaining story.