Tuesday, September 04, 2007

talking to strangers

Today I was walking to get some lunch when this guy asked me if this was the downtown part of D.C. It took me longer to answer than it should have ("downtown" has a specific, boring geographical meaning and I have a literal mind; "yes" would have been a fine answer), and I asked him if he was looking for something, and he said he'd just moved to town this morning. Anyway, I ended up talking to this complete stranger in front of the empanadas store for, like, 10 minutes. Now, don't go thinking this is the opening scene of a romantic comedy - he was old. But he has an interesting job, and maybe he can feed me story ideas.

Since when do I talk to strangers? I feel like this is a relatively new thing. Ok, talking to a complete stranger for that long, not normal at all. (Only possible explanation is that he'd just moved here from the west coast and hadn't figured out that we don't do that over here.) But I find there is more chatting with strangers than there used to be. If I had a tween daughter, can you imagine how embarrassed she would be by me?

4 comments:

J.Po said...

I think it's an age thing. I talk to strangers a lot now, too. And there was a time I avoided calling for pizza!

BASSO said...

...hey, I saw Crocodile Dundee - it could happen you know....

towwas said...

Yeah, I think it's an age thing, too. And boredom. What else am I doing? Might as well talk to strangers.

Unknown said...

Tween daughters text message complete strangers instead. lol wtf? idk...my bff Jill?