How to talk about travel without being ‘that Gap Yah Kid’
Taking a gap year was one of the best decisions I’ve made, I don’t regret it for a second. I’m sure most people who took a year out to travel feel the same way. So what is it that holds us back from sharing our travelling experiences with new people? I’d hazard a guess that it ultimately comes down to being scared of coming across as a ‘Gap Yah’ stereotype. The Ralph-Lauren-wearing, bong-smoking cliché has become a parody of those with enough money to travel the world in between school and university.
Yet combatting this caricature is actually pretty easy, as most of us don’t conform to the popular stereotypes anyway.
Taking a gap year does not mean we’re all incredibly rich, unlike the most popular gap year clichés (think Jack Whitehall’s JP in ‘Fresh Meat’ or Matt Lacey’s viral ‘Gap Yah’ parody). Whilst the JPs of the world are happily cruising the world on Daddy’s yacht, the rest of us work in order to travel. I worked for over half of my year out, earning enough money to pay for a couple of months’ travel.
Whilst we know not to bore people to death with various stories of our colourful exploits; treading the fine line between sharing your experiences with people and sounding like a broken record can be tricky.
So how should we actually talk about our experiences without being forever labelled a Gap Yah Kid?
- No bragging
The most obvious way to avoid being stereotyped is to make sure you don’t over-do the gap year talk. “Yah I can’t believe you said that because that actually reminds me of this one time in my Gap Yah…” No one warms to a person who doesn’t shut up about how enlightened they’ve been by their my-life-is-better-than-yours experiences whilst travelling. This shouldn’t be hard to avoid, letting people know that yes, you’ve had a gap year and yes, it was really amazing, is absolutely fine; just don’t go on about it. Talking about travel isn’t about showing off all the amazing places that you’ve been to, it’s about sharing the things that make you interesting. This leads on nicely to the next point…
- Keep it succinct
One of the best ways to avoid bragging is to keep the information you give people to a minimum. I’ve always found being concise difficult, just ask the tutors who mark my essays, but if you can find a way to concisely sum up your year out, you’ll find it is easier to gauge whether the person you’re talking to wants to hear more. Even just answering the question ‘what did you do on your year off?’ with a simple statement like ‘I worked and then travelled’. This allows the other person to either ask more about where you travelled to, or to change the topic. Don’t be offended if people don’t want to talk for hours about your travel, it’s nothing personal. If they didn’t have a gap year themselves, they may just not be as interested.
- Ask questions back
Another way to ensure you don’t sound like the self-centred stereotype of a ‘Gap Yah’ student is to ask your new acquaintance some questions back. If they have asked to hear more about your travels, make sure you ask them some questions back, maybe about what they did over summer. This way they know that you’re interested in more than just talking about your own experiences!
- Timing and Relevance
Timing is key; bringing up your travels every night at pre-drinks is not the way to go about sharing your experiences. Similarly, shoehorning gap year anecdotes into conversation at every opportunity is not going to make you many friends. It’s pretty easy to judge when it’s relevant to chuck your own gap year story into the midst of conversation, just by paying attention to what other people are talking about.
- Most importantly…don’t be afraid to talk about it!
If you’re a fresher who took a gap year and did some travelling, don’t be afraid to bring it up to your flatmates or course friends. Travel is a great source of conversation. Just remember even though you and I both know you’re not ‘that gap yah kid’, other people don’t. So to avoid letting this stereotype follow us gap year students to the grave, see how you go with trying to follow some of these steps, it may surprise you…
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