Don’t Talk To Strangers
That’s what we’re told when we’re young and then later on it becomes the way to meet new people and make friends. Yes, I’m being wilfully facetious (is that right?) but it serves to illustrate my point.
Being a veteran of taking public transport instead of driving I’ve often ended up in conversation with complete strangers who are sharing part or all of a journey. I often find that I hope not to become engaged in conversation but then feel guilty if I try to avoid it by plugging in or reading.
With these one-off conversations you’ll hardly ever fail to cover new, strange conversational ground. That’s as long as you don’t get stuck in discussion about how the ills of the world are caused by Group X and don’t you agree?
Without these chance encounters I would never had had a great discussion about hard-core science fiction novels with a girl on the bus to Inverness. Never dismiss what you’re reading being about “y’know, space ships and aliens” as the other person may know a lot more than you do. Also, the recommendation to read Darwin’s Radio was a good one, the sequel less so. I hope she had a good Christmas in Thurso.
There was the Scottish farmer I spoke to on a flight to France last year. He was nervous about flying so was a couple of pints down and on his way to a friend’s wedding. After he has dismissed his occupation as not worthy of discussion I offered back the information that I grew my own veg and was planning to expand on my garden next (this) year. We chatted amiably about what was worth growing, the inability of supermarkets to label potatoes with the variety in the bag (the reason I refuse to buy bags of “baking” tatties) and discovered we shared a hatred of the nadine variety and disbelief that it was classed as a baker. The lack of red and blue varieties was also lamented. It wasn’t all potato related though, he was very taken with the idea that I was going on holiday to relax by climbing mountains and scaling cliffs.
On the way north this weekend I was sat next to a bloke called Paul who was travelling home to Perth from a holiday in Scarborough. He works at some kind of Salvation Army hostel and we discussed heroin overdosing, imaginitive suicide techniques (crushed valium and lemon juice injected into the penis (it didn’t work)), the strange advice of 999 operators to leave unconscious people on their back and only put them into the recovery position if they start vomiting as well as the joys of marshal arts.
For the most part, I still want the conversations to end while I’m in them, it’s only afterwards that I can look back and appreciate that this is a short discussion with someone I’ll likely never meet again. I should savour the moment while it happens.
