About a month ago, I went to a wedding. At this wedding, I knew three people–the bride, the groom, and the best man. And, at least in my network of friends, the feeling at a social event where you don’t really know anybody is kind of awkward. You really only have two options:
1) Ignore everybody, and act like a giant weirdo.
2) Try to make small talk with some strangers.
I usually chose option 1. (Or, the offshot of it, don’t go at all.) I feel like I grew up in a world where everything has a point. And I never understood making small talk with people you’d never see again. What’s the point of that? You’re not gaining anything from it. You’re not really giving anything to the other person. All you’re doing is fighting boredom for a few moments.
For whatever reason, I would act this way. That unless you were in a situation where there was some tangible benefit to engaging with somebody, what’s the point? Now, if you asked me about it, I would have never actually admitted to that. I never had those thoughts. I’ve always been reserved, and it takes real energy for me to meet people. I’m not the life of the party and I never will be. So to spend up social energy on people who you will never see again–how could that be worth it?
As I’ve gotten older, this mindset has started to fade. For me, meeting people is not as hard anymore. I’m not as quiet as I used to be, and now I can just talk to people with no agenda. It makes you more real. You don’t need anything from the person, you’re just celebrating being alive.
Case(s) in point–the short chat with the storeowner. These people are dwindling by the day, as Walmarts and Starbucks and their ilk dominate the landscape, but it is always nice to see somebody who has their own interesting place of business, specialized, and it’s great to talk to them for a few brief moments and then go on your way.
In June, I was taking a huge test. When I was there, a girl, fresh out of college named Amber started talking to me about the test, and we just struck up a conversation about our lives and what we were in for. We talked for maybe 20 or 30 minutes, and after we finished the test, we went our separate ways. We didn’t exchange contact info, so there is a 99.9% chance I will never see this girl again. However, when we were both there and nervous about this test and needing a distraction, we were able to connect like that.
Same thing at the wedding. I went not knowing anybody who would be at my table (like I said, I knew people there, but they were going to be very busy with other things that night.) I met some people about my age. I didn’t want to be friends with them, but they weren’t bad people, they weren’t dreadfully boring or crazy. They were fine. And that’s all you need sometimes in a social situation…just people to help pass the time. It doesn’t matter that you’ll never see them again, it’s just nice to meet somebody and talk about this crazy world we live in for a little while.
Well it is a wedding so there is also option three: Get completely drunk!
The problem with that in this scenario is that I was staying about half an hour away, and I was going to have to drive because I really didn’t feel like a very expensive taxi ride home.