Chit-Chat

R.a.n.t. of week 01/26/70

When I was younger, I could chat forever on the phone with my friends. With one of my friends, in fact, it was so hard to say good-bye to we devised a system where after an hour or so, we'd finally agree to count to three and hang up. Seriously, if we didn't do that, one of us would think of one last thing to bring up, and suddenly we'd be on the phone for another hour. To be honest, we still do that to this day, more out of nostalgia than absolutely being necessary. The only drawback to this feature is when other people are generally around when I talk to him on the phone, they (my kids) always know to whom I've been talking to. I suppose everyone who has an 'oldest' friend likely has some quirk they still engage in. What is it you still do with your closest friend?

But now that I'm older, I have a hard time finding even small things to talk about. Unless I have somehow grasped their attention with a story, I find it really hard to chit-chat. As for grasping someone's attention, I don't generally have a great story to share with others because I'm now a generally boring individual. Most of my conversations lately consist of me saying, uh huh, yes yes, oh really, I know. I've become quite the good listener. When I do work up the nerve to initiate a conversation it's usually something like, "I must be invisible". It's supposed to be a joke, usually when a friend walks past me without acknowledging me. Of course, then the rest of the conversation is fairly awkward and I ponder for the next few hours if I just sounded like a jerk. What have been some of your feeble attempts to initiative a conversation with someone, that failed. Here are my top ten.


Jeffrey Scott's Top 10 Worst Chit-Chat Initiations

10. I must be invisible.
9. Did you lose a fight or something?
8. Can I get a raise?
7. Cold enough for you?
6. You have tissue on the bottom of your shoe.
5. Hi Shuma, wait, no. It's Kayra, right?
4. Wanna hear a joke?
3. So I hear (favourite sports team) lost again.
2. Do you have a quarter?
1. Did you fly here with your broom?