By now, if you're like me, you've all run into a high school classmate or two that you haven't seen for almost ten years (maybe more if you aren't me) and you had the opportunity to play that awkward "How have you been?" conversation game. You know the one: he or she will tell you at least one interesting thing they've been up to since graduation (at least you hope its interesting), you tell him or her something you hope sounds just as interesting (though it never sounds as interesting as you hope), neither of you really care but ask at least one follow-up question to pretend you do, and then you're both on your separate ways. Not so painful when you're in a place like the supermarket or that adult video store you frequent (though honestly, who goes out to browse for porn these days, stop it!), but what if you're someplace you can't escape so quickly from? A couple weeks ago, I was on the bus and there's really no where to run to when you're on the bus unless you're willing to get off and wait for the next bus but then the next one isn't coming for another half hour, you hope since with this traffic it could be an hour and you don't want to be standing in the sun for that long and you can't sit in the shade because that's where the homeless guy stores all his stuff. Trust me, I thought it through.
"But why would you even need to think of an escape plan?" you may naively ask. Surely, almost ten years would give the two of you plenty to talk awkwardly about for an hour? And you would be wrong. First of all, we were both pretty antisocial kids back in the day and honestly that hasn't changed much. Second, I hate talking on the bus, especially when I'm standing and trying to constantly adjust my voice to be heard over the sound of the bus but not enough to bother anyone else. Mostly, though, it's what I think is called the Conversation Paradox: The longer you haven't seen someone, the less you actually have to talk about. *I have no idea if this is actually a real thing, and, if not, you can stop reading before you get to me bullshitting something that clearly isn't real. (side note: when did "bullshitting" become a word? Spell-check doesn't seem to see anything wrong with using it as a word, i.e. no red, squiggly error line is popping up)
To be fair, we did make it a good fifteen minutes of talking. Work ended up as the first topic as were both on the bus going home from our respective jobs. Sadly, I think the second was what we've heard was going on with some of our other classmates, which we didn't really know too much about. Then the awkward silence started to set in. And luckily by then, a couple seats opened up and I was immediately asleep. I felt kind of bad about that and probably should have made more of an attempt at keeping the conversation going but we both just got off work... and ... sleep.
Besides, TEN YEARS! Okay, almost ten years but let's round up to make this a little easier. I can barely remember what kind of person I was ten years ago. That's a lie, but honestly, I can barely remember what kind of person my other classmates were back in the day. And that's probably why these conversations go south so quickly, because we haven't kept in touch and I don't remember too much about the past. Or it could be that I'm still trying to base these conversations in the past instead of trying to update them to the present... you know, like you're supposed to be doing in these "How have you been?" conversations you find so awkward. Ahh, okay, I'm starting to see what I've been doing wrong.
I guess I could've brought up recent interests to fill the time, maybe even found a common one. You know, the thing that keeps you and your friends talking for hours even though you just saw each other a week or two ago. What was I interested in a couple weeks ago? I think Bleach was starting to get good again. Probably a couple TV shows. The "Mr. Chu" music video just came out, I think. But not stories. Don't go telling people that, they don't have the time. "I pet a koala" is fine, but don't go telling them about the whole trip (though that was like 8 months ago so don't go bringing that up anyway). And no achievements like the whole "quit smoking" thing; no one likes a show-off.
Now that I've written all this out, maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just shitty at basic conversation etiquette and sharing. Or maybe I'm just a boring person. It's probably both. Well, that was a waste of time though if I re-read this enough maybe I'll find the lesson I think I'm supposed to learn from this whole thing. Thanks for wasting time with me, though, I guess, though maybe you just had nothing better to do. (to be fair, I did give you a chance to run)
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