Introductions

I don't small talk.

I also don't hoe-down, but that's another post.

There's nothing I hate more than being forced into mundane conversation with people I don't know.  I hate when clerks at grocery stores go beyond the "hello, how are you today?" pleasantries and make comments about my purchases or what my plans are for the weekend.

Especially when my purchases are my plans for the weekend.

Why else would I be buying a package of Double-Stuf Oreos on a Friday night?

Social situations are not much better.  It takes me a long time to warm up to people.  In the meantime, I'm not very good at chatting with them.  I never know what to say or what questions to ask, and I feel awkward and stupid.  I hate being forced into these stiff conversations.  This is why I rarely attend parties.

Oh, parties.

I'm not much of a surround-myself-with-lots-of-superficial-friends kind of person.  I'm much more of a hang-out-with-one-or-two-people-that-get-me-and-that-I-feel-comfortable-with kind of person.  But I go to parties occasionally because it's important for me to be a human being and not a hermit crab.

Or a hermit human, rather.

Whatever.

Potato, potato.

My favorite friendships - not necessarily my most meaningful, but my favorite - have been with people who have skipped the small-talk altogether.  I have one friend from high school, Jaz, that I still see on rare occasions at baby showers and things like that.  I love seeing Jaz, because every few years when we run into each other we don't play the "and what's new with you?" game.

Catch-up talk is just small talk with a different hat.

Jaz and I don't bother with asking each other about our jobs, where we're living, or what we've been up to for the last couple years.  Instead we usually launch right into some topical conversation as if we were picking up where we'd left off last time we met.

I've had a few other people who, within minutes of meeting them, I've found myself having a discussion about whether a tiger or an alligator would win in a fight.

Tiger, by the way.

I would much rather get to know somebody by learning about their preferred chip-to-cheese ratio in nachos or what Disney character they would want to bring to life than by learning about their job or their family or their school work.

I figure if I get to be actual friends with somebody, I'll learn all that stuff organically and in due time.  But for starters, let's make it a little more interesting and talk about that special on TLC where the guy had the bugs growing in his brain or if we'd rather have hands for feet or feet for hands.

Because if that's not the kind of random stuff you're thinking about anyway, we probably won't be very good friends at all.

Unless you bring me Oreos.