When I first found out about facebook I avoided it at all cost for a long time. But, of course, I eventually caved. Now you can find me there more often than most people. Although I never made a conscious effort to avoid blogging, I have never attempted it before, despite seeing its popularity and various people telling me to (not sure why...). But, here I am now.
I think, a lot, about all kinds of things. Whether it's at work while I'm tuning out all the annoying customers I have to deal with, or dealing with my self-diagnosed insomnia at 2 a.m., I'm always thinking about something. Therefore, I've decided to chronicle some of those thoughts.
I thought about using my first blog to introduce myself, but figured that's a waste of time. From my estimates, I calculate that about 3 people (myself included), with a plus/minus of 1/2 person, will ever see this blog. I think this will be for my own amusement than anything else. I will say about myself that I am sarcastic (usually more than necessary) and I hate political correctness (more on this later). I only say those two things as a caveat to my writing and hope ultimately that anything I post can be innocuous in its content.
I've had some experiences lately that have reminded me of the uncouth hilarity of certain encounters with people. The other week I saw a girl that I work with, but rarely see there, at a stake activity. We're not really friends and I know nothing about her. We walked past each other and since we knew who each other was we both kind of stopped to say hi. But I knew from the get go that the conversation would be nothing. It was that odd, "I know you, you know me, but really we have absolutely nothing to say to each other" encounter. Love those. Conversation went more or less like this:
Her: "Hey"
Me: "Hey, how are you?"
Her: "Good, how are you?"
Me: "I'm good"
Her: "Cool...."
Me: "Yeah, well I'll see ya later."
Her: "K, see ya."
Well isn't that just the epitome of intelligent conversation? We make Lloyd look brilliant. At least they had Big Gulps to talk about....
This is definitely not an isolated incident for me or other people I've talked to. There are lots of people we just kind of "know" from somewhere and it almost seems rude if we don't stop and say hi. Yet we leave these (non) conversations having accomplished nothing. Inconsequential, yes, funny nonetheless.
It reminds me of other odd conversation moments. When someone says something to you, but you didn't understand at all what they said. Usually you can get away with a smile and nod. But sometimes they ask a question or say something that requires a response. Those can be slightly awkward sometimes, especially if you just finished acting like you knew exactly what they said, yet said nothing. This happens to me occasionally at work since I deal with hundreds of customers per day.
Another angle of that is if you miss part of what was said or thought the person said something else. Then you respond to what you think was said or to partial information. This particular one caused one of my most embarrassing moments ever (you'll have to ask, I'm not typing it all here).
Or when you're talking to someone you don't know well and you intentionally or unintentionally find some kind of common link (you're from Kansas?! My friend's sister passed through there once on her way to Maine! Cool.......), yet it leads you nowhere in that conversation.
Last one I can think of, because I did it yet again recently, is when you just plain old stick your foot in your mouth. Like I said, I think a lot, yet for some reason when I try and vocalize these thoughts I come out looking like an idiot (it sounded way better in my head, I swear). I've talked to girls before that have long and/or unusual last names that have expressed their anticipation to lose that name when they get married. A few weeks ago in a conversation with four other girls, one girl had what I thought was one of those names. On my way out the door, through certain circumstances, I said her last name and asked her if she was anxious to get rid of her name. Stupid move. The way it came out made it sound like her name was a disgrace and she should be embarrassed by it or something. Why do I talk? They all looked at me like I was retarded (not denying it). Unfortunately I've had way too many similar experiences, so I've just learned to live with my own idiocracy.
