Small talk

I can't beleive I found this piece of text from over a year ago. I guess I entered the city love/hate relationship long before realizing it. I am a New Yorker now.


January 24th, 2005

Hey, how are you? –Good thanks. You? –Good. –Cold huh? –Yeah. Freezing. Can’t wait for summer. –Me too. –How’s work? –Good. You? –Still looking for a new job… –Cool. I have to go. Nice talking to you. –Yeah, bye. –Bye.

Small talk.
What exactly pushes us to be eternally dull, boring and dangerously persistent? You meet friends of friends, hoping for nothing but a nice conversation. It happens you’re happy; it doesn’t you get over it. So why do we keep re-enacting those uncomfortable simulacra of interest? What good does it do to engage a conversation that is indubitably heading towards a dead end?
Like anyone, I grew up meeting my neighbors and their families knowing these bribes of conversations would never digress into a late night at Jenny’s Coffee Shop. But those are people I did not choose, just like my own family -you love them unconditionally (as I do) or you spend your life figuring how to. So outside of the immediate surrounding, why do we authorize ourselves to deliver automated speeches?

I am tired of pretending, wasting my time on shallow acquaintances, tired of expecting a punch line for a joke that doesn’t exist. Live and let die. Time to move on, eradicate the plethora of individuals who are welcoming hosts only if you promise not to stay. Exit overrated ones that label you “clinging type” when you show interest, and that call you back once they understand the inferior being that you are was not mesmerized by their outstanding wits.

Random people vanish with the last call of the bar. Let those empty shells vanish with them.