Virtual Reality

I used to think there were two different types of training course.

The first is your typical classroom and tutorial session. Bloke at front of classroom, gesticulating wildly at a blackboard (or PowerPoint presentation); passive learning from the students; the odd tutorial session acting as the ''active learning' component, so the stuff learned during passive learning is reinforced.

The second is more concerned with practical exercises that punctuate and act as a foundation to a quickly explained theory. One example would be learning the guitar or the piano; the playing is the thing, although a quick explanation of theory underpins why you're doing what you're doing. Another example would be job interview technique; role-playing is the thing, but why you're giving 80% eye contact to your job interviewer and not farting continuously at an 80 degree angle in your swivel chair underpins the theory of body language.

It came as some surprise that when I did a Negotiation training course last week, I stumbled across a third approach. It involved dumping a bunch of anxious trade union representatives in the middle of an isolated spartan country house miles away from civilisation and subjecting them to a bunch of mind games, seeing how they would react and interact with each other. To those who are reminded of Big Brother (the Channel 4 TV series*, as opposed to the leader of a dystopic future in George Orwell's "1984" novel), they're not far wrong. There was even a game that involved nominating, voting and then evicting fellow housemates, for Chrissakes!

From the beginning, I'd already prepared myself for the worst. I was being driven up in a 2 hour car journey, with three comely female companions (one of them driving). For those regular readers of my blog, it's already known that my life is a catalogue of "out-of-the-comfort-zone" moments, replete with misunderstandings and gnashing of teeth. I was ready for the stark truth of reality as compared to the fluffy cloud of the theoretical. You want an example? Okay, a few of my male mates were understandably excited (but only by means of proxy) that I was to be indulged by being confined in a car with three (two single and unattached) attractive women. I, however, could only see the terror**.

Contrary to popular belief (or more specifically, FHM masculine fantasy), when there is a group of women and one singular male in a confined space, that singular male does not suddenly turn into a potential breeding vessel.

Also, my testosterone-fuelled befuddled beefcake pals, there is only a very VERY tiny probability that all the women will spontaneously turn lesbian and start writhing around on top of each other, before spontaneously switching back to a 'natural' heterosexual status quo and then them all 'doing' the nearest male mate. The female car driver wouldn't be able to steer straight for a start***. No, dear fellow male bloggees, as a singular male, what really happens is you become a small experimental specimen; like a small insect continuously prodded in curiosity.

So, what really happened? Well, there was my dearest friend and confidant, Donna, and she was the designated driver. She was a very good driver and I felt safe in her hands. She must have known she was a good driver. It would certainly suggest why most other drivers on the road were lacking the same motoring skills as her, as she patiently explained that driver 'A' was "a total fuckwit" or that driver 'B' "couldnae find the right lane if his life depended on it". After a particularly useful throwaway remark about driver 'C' "not knowing the difference between his indicator light and his left arse cheek", I decided to turn to my other female companions.

"Hello, I was wanting to know," said a cute bubbly blonde called Jen, "you're a man. Why are you all such total bastards?!?".

I started explaining back patiently to young Jen that it's only a loud-mouthed minority that misrepresents us so horribly, but she wasn't really listening - I think she was noticing my eyes were a cold shade of bastardliness. I turned to my final car occupant, the dark-haired sultry beauty called Heather, and tried the same line again (aka the loud-mouthed minority of men misrepresenting the quiet, sensitive souls that we really are).

"Are you gay?" she retorted. "No, seriously, are you?".

The rest of the journey's conversation seemed to revolve mostly around the art of fisting. And, no, that doesn't mean the FHM reader's lesbian fantasy has come true. Merely, a rather bemused exchange of ideas between four confused heterosexuals about what gay women get up to.

So, we eventually reached our destination, the isolated country house that I described above in the third paragraph.

There was something curiously enigmatic about the place - lots of odd dark corridors locked off by security doors; biology labs; an old library where you can imagine Colonel Mustard bludgeoning somebody with a candlestick. I remarked that the place was possibly haunted - something that irritated nearly everybody.

"Don't say that!" someone hissed at me. I repeated that the place was probably haunted - the repetition wasn't for any portentous reason, it was just to annoy everyone.

As some of you who know me really well, when I'm in a slightly stressful situation, I tend to put on an act. It's normally one of nonchalance, flippancy and irreverance. It was emerging even now and would eventually be the exaggerated facade that showed itself to a jaded audience of union reps in role-playing negotation scenarios. In fact, it culminated in one gloriously heated exchange, where it was perceived that I'd suggested to a kind and thoughtful woman that her kids were "care in the community" cases. I've been reliably informed that, for the first day at any rate, most of the union reps were unaware that this was an act and thought I was an arrogant bastard.

This "total immersion" role-playing in proper scenarios is actually really powerful. Quite apart from eliciting strong emotional reactions in its participants, it's well-known that strong emotional arousal cements memory retrieval. So, all those potentially dry notes on Negotiation Technique are suddenly spot-welded to your frontal lobe. I'm never going to forget being nominated and voted out by a bunch of people who were convinced that I was in the mafia. Trouble is: it was a game where the mafia had to hide the fact they were the fricking mafia and achieved this by convincing a gullible community to vote out innocent citizens (specifically, those who had deduced who the real mafia were). I fecking well remembered my Negotiation notes after that; particularly after the rather nasty nightmare I had later, based on those events****.

* For those of you interested, I plan on posting a series of blog entries on the Channel 4 'Big Brother' TV series in the week before the new series launches. Then I won't watch it. I have my reasons which will quickly become apparent after the series of articles. And, no, I'm not a 'Big Brother' snob, I've watched the entire third and seventh series.

** No, it's not because I'm in I.T. and so, by default, I'm scared of women. Smart arse.

*** I'm ignoring the male colleagues who said that impairing a woman's ability at driving wouldn't be noticeable in the first place.

**** Of course I'm not going to tell you explicitly what the nightmare was - suffice to say, it involved being chased by a large number of medieval villagers, desperate to set me on fire or chuck me in a lake.