The "Bones" Effect

I love most things about being a forensic anthropologist, but there are a couple of things that I definitely do not love. The first is having to do recovery work when it's really cold or wet or hot or humid or mosquito-laden. The second thing is having to explain forensic anthropology.

Whenever I meet new people, the question of what I'm doing with my life always comes up. I say "I'm studying forensic anthropology," and then whomever I'm talking with will get this little look on their face, like they're trying to figure it out on their own, and then they ask, "...so how do those two words fit together?"

So I say, "forensic anthropology is the analysis of human skeletal remains in a legal context."

And then they say, "so like Egyptian mummies and Neanderthals and stuff?"

And I say, "No...more modern, like in the last fifty years."

And then they say, "oh, so like 'CSI'?"

And then I say, "actually, more like 'Bones'."

And then they say, "I've never actually seen 'Bones'."

And then I say, "Don't. It's awful. The science is all fake." And at that point I'm trying to think of anyway I can get away from this conversation. So I ask, "what do you do?" because even pretending to listen to people's stories about the insurance business is more fun than trying to explain forensic anthropology to people who won't ever understand it.

This all came full blast last night, when I went to a ward "consoli-dating" activity, which is a mix of a progressive dinner and speed dating. It was decent, except I had to go through this forensic anthropology defining process five different times with nobody I was remotely interested in dating. At least it was a free meal. I'm just very surprised that people still don't understand what forensic anthropology is. You hear about "The CSI Effect," which is normal people thinking they know tons about forensic science because they've watched "CSI." Apparently nobody watches "Bones," but that's understandable. That show's awful.

Maybe I just need to make up a fake career for meeting new people. Or find people who already know what forensic anthropology is and aren't completely repelled by the fact that I deal with dead people all day.