The other day, I ran into an old friend and had this exchange:
Me: "Oh my gosh, look who it is!"
Her: "Hey, how are you? I haven't seen you in…what, two years?"
Me: "Yeah, wow, how have you been?"
Her: "I've been really good."
Me: "So what have you been up to?"
Her: "Oh, you know, just stayin' out of trouble."
…
So, being me, I couldn't help but consider the alternative. What if the conversation had gone differently?
"So what have you been up to?"
"I'm actually in a lot of trouble right now. Thing is, I murdered a guy a while back, and it's been—well, you know, it's just been really tough to keep my head down, and…yeah, I'm just in a bit of a bind, but I think I'll be alright. What about you? What are you doing these days?"
I so hope that no one takes offense at my pointing out the banality of some most of our small talk. But maybe think for a minute about how you answer polite questions. With a little effort, you could really spice up the conversation.
4 comments:
I agree! :o)
I agree! :o)
Hey! I was there for this conversation! And the recording thereof.
This is the equivalent of you being there for one of my sketches.
I think people should also address deep philosophical issues regularly in passing conversation. Ex:
"Hey! What's up?"
"Who knows! There could be a meteor speeding towards Earth right now but we won't know until it hits us or passes in a couple of months! Makes life a little more adventurous, eh? How are you spending your last days alive? ..." etc.
Of course, you'd have to think of a new answer for every time you ran into someone and I think most humans are just more comfortable having a mundane set of answers to offer as socializing whenever necessary. It's more dependable.
In short (but not really):
Your cause is just, but highly improbable. Not until everyone gets less lazy and more creative. You can add this to the list of things to inject into the mainstream.
Right next to o"Terrif!"
ahahhahahaha...oh Jordan. What a great post- so funny yet also so true! Hope all's well :)
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