Member-only story
Don’t Let Me Sit Next To You
Unless you love conversations with random strangers
I’m good at striking up conversations with random people. I’m not sure if it’s a positive trait or not. Usually, you can tell pretty quickly if the person I am verbally stalking is receptive or not. By the end of a half hour either we will know enough about each other to write a short obituary or I will know the other person has a stick up their ass.
Well, I guess that’s a bit of a judgment call. That if they won’t respond to my queries they are intolerant of prissies. They may just be having a bad day. Or not want to chat with a stranger. For many valid reasons. Usually, you can read them a bit though. Find out if they are too sophisticated or well-bred to engage in banter with someone who looks like me, or if they genuinely are shy and prefer to keep to themselves.
Or if they do actually want to watch what they came to see.
In this case, it was children’s swimming lessons. I find it easy to engage in conversation while watching the kids thrash in the water while the instructor tries to manage a flock of small bodies who seem to have very different levels of both ability and level of motivation to be there. But then I have done this several million times. Sat at the edge of the pool while my children take lessons while I’m sweating…
