無駄話する (Idle Gossip)

Visiting a new place for work or vacation or anything allows for lots of opportunities to travel and try new things, with one of those new things being new conversations with people. Whether it's the person sitting next to you on the plane, train, or bus, or just new co-workers, new restaurant you want to try, new gym you join, it provides ample opportunity to run into new faces and start up a conversation (my girlfriend thinks I'm trying to do this to meet someone new and replace her, but I respond with I hadn't really been successful at that for 28 years before I met her). I used to think this was a skill, to strike up a conversation with a stranger, hit it off, talk about common interests, and suddenly the conversation has gone over an hour, and you realize you're now best friends, exchange phone numbers. When I was single, I thought this was the dream scenario for a single guy to meet their spouse: it's inspired out of Sleepless in Seattle and countless romantic comedies. Except it doesn't usually happen that way, with all the social stigma of stalkers and girls not wanting to talk to "creepy guys," etc. Even people of the same gender, you're reluctant to talk to people in case they want to sell you anything. At a bar or club, it's like every time you try to talk to somebody it's an attempt at "hooking up" with them, which is really not conducive to a genuine conversation: both parties of the conversation know what's going on. 

So it's hard enough to strike up a conversation with someone (without some social lubricant like alcohol, of course). But is it even a good idea to do so? My recent experiences suggest otherwise. Sure it's awesome to talk to a genius who has information about everything and talk about everything,  or a comedian who makes you crack up and has jokes up the wazoo, but the random person in the street isn't like that. They talk about sports, their life, recent events, etc. At the end of day, I realize that it's not that fulfilling of an experience: the average person isn't that interesting, myself included. I go to work, go to dodgeball, talk with my girlfriend, try to spend time with my family, volunteer occasionally, go on vacation occasionally, and that's pretty much it. The time spent with someone talking can be better spent getting smarter by listening to the news or learning languages like me, paying the bills or taking care of other business (I learn this especially getting older with more responsibilities), or anything else, cuz idly talking is taking up free time, not productive time. Sure you might meet the next Marc Zuckerberg or big entrepreneur (I exclude professional networking events, which it IS a good idea to talk with people) but it's much more likely you meet the next wannabe actor in Hollywood or trust fund baby living exotically off his parents' money (I meet people in the wrong places apparently). I used to wonder why people didn't talk much anymore, and partly it's that smartphones are much more interesting, but also social interaction isn't really that necessary anymore: you don't need to ask people what the time is, you don't need to talk to get the news, you don't need to talk to learn how to refinance your mortgage or change a spare tire, it's all online, you can just "google it." Very little useful knowledge is coming from the idle conversation experience. Plus, when you strike up a conversation with someone you realize that there's a good chance you're NEVER gonna see them again and that knowledge about their family history, what their interests are, etc. are just going to go to waste and fade away eventually (unless you have a REALLY good memory) 

That's why when I see a big bar or worse, BREWERY (the new big thing, apparently, getting beer straight from the source like the Holy Grail) and people sitting and just drinking beer, I realize that's just for me, this whole sit and talk thing. When I go to parties, I wish there were more activities other than just stand around and talking to people. Don't get me wrong, (I think) I'm pretty good at talking to people, but do we really need to do it for 3 or 4 hours every Saturday night? Also, if sending out an email longer than 50 words instantly becomes "TL: DR" (Too long, did not read) even though it would take like 1 minute to read, then why are people still meeting face to face for HOURS to talk idly about stuff that's probably less important. Sigh, society. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan