“Everyone Is Just Waiting”

This chapter focuses on the experience of waiting rather than on the situation. Here is the author’s definition of waiting (with a little thanks to the Oxford English Dictionary online): “waiting entails the emotional experience of a situation that involves staying where you are until a particular time or event or until the arrival of a particular person—or both.” This definition places as much stress on the emotional situation of waiting as it does on the situation. The chapter focuses on three ways of representing this experience: through pairing, pausing, and fear.