Friday, January 21, 2005

Friendly American Strangers

Americans are not comfortable with silences or with strangers. They need to fill the silence and pretend to be friendly. And the chat cannot be anything but inane nonsense because they are too sensitive and you never know what topic is taboo - innocent questions about family or current affairs could be dangerous. So the safest topics in order of preference end up being:
  1. How are you?
  2. Weather.
  3. Day of week.
  4. Sports.
As someone said, the conversation goes something like, "Hey buddy, how's it going? Cold outside, huh? Damn these Mondays. So how about thoe Knicks last night?"
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous9/23/2006 12:54:00 PM

    I beg to differ -- I have amazing conversations with strangers all the time. I am warm, open, and convivial by nature so I'm told it's nearly impossible for me to be disingenuous. May I be counted as an exception to your rule? ;-)

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  2. Libran Lover9/26/2006 11:04:00 PM

    anonymous - I am sure you are the exception. I mean, there are so MANY comments from you (anonymous) all over my blog, and most of them are nice and friendly. :-)

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