Have you ever ran into someone that was a little bit too friendly? Like, someone who you don't know at all, but they insist on talking to you like they've known you forever? Or telling you tons of stuff from their personal life?Well this happened to me twice this past week.
I was cruising around before school Tuesday night and stopped to get gas. And apparently, it was a really slow night for pumping gas, because the chick working small-talked me the entire time I was there. I don't know if she thought I was cute or just needed someone to talk to, but it was a bit weird. It went something like this:
me: could I get $20 bucks of regular.
her: alrighty.
(this is usually where the communication ends, right?)
her: so, how are you doin' tonight?
me: ohhhhh, not bad i guess.
her: cool.
(if you have not yet ceased communication by this point, fine...but surely this is the point where normal people usually stop conversing.)
her: what are you up to tonight?
me: not much...just goin' to school actually.
her: oh yeah? up here at the college?
me: yup.
her: what classes are you taking?
me: ummmmm, just two business classes...pretty boring stuff.
her: yeah, cool...i hate school. it's, like, so dumb. i had a class last term, and the professor was so mean to us. he gave us way too much homework.
me: oh, that sucks.
her: yeah it did. he didn't ever let us leave class early, like we all wanted to.
me: oh, huh. (this was me obviously trying to avoid saying anything else that would give her the "please tell me more" green light.)
her: one night it even made me late for my boyfriends birthday party, and everyone was way drunk by the time i got there. it sucked.
me: oh, nice. yeah that would suck.
(gas is done pumping, finally.)
her: well have fun at school, and have a good rest of the night.
me: you too, thanks.
And there you go. It actually went longer than that and she told me more about herself then what I just gave you. I could have done without knowing any of the stuff she told me.
I wasn't trying to be rude or anything, nor was I was being jerky at the time we were chatting. But I had no clue who this girl was, never had met her before in my life, and here she was telling me the latest bit of drama from her unexciting life.
Again, I don't say it to be rude, but it's just stuff that I didn't need to know. Ya know?
So there is more to the story. Next night, same gas station. Same chick working. Grrrreat. And guess what happened? Yep, you got it. In the four and a half minutes that I was parked at the station, she managed to small talk my ear off. Actually, it wasn't just small talk this time. It was big talk, not small talk. She told me even more about her unexciting life!
I can't recall the exact dialogue that took place on the second night, but here is me paraphrasing: more about her boyfriend, him being drunk all the time, her going to a Halloween party tonight, her not wanting to go to that same Halloween party, what excuse she was going to give her friends so that she could skip that Halloween party, how she hasn't decided what her costume is going to be yet, how she lives like three hours away from town, how this party was at a house that is a couple hours from her house, how that is way too far to drive, how she makes that drive, "like, all the time with no problems", more asking about what classes I'm taking at school, how her boyfriend is jobless and she has to support him and finally, of all things, how gas is much too expensive.
At the time, the only thing I took away from it all was that her boyfriend must be a poor lazy drunk a-hole. Nice, huh?
I took my receipt and drove off.
But on a larger scale, this happens all the time when associating with people in public places. I don't have any more examples from my own life to share here, but these people are all over out there.
This kind of person is around every corner, trust me. This kind of person is also the person that when (again) you're at a store or work, or just in passing and you ask them "Hey, what's up", they will really tell you everything that is "up" in their lives at the present time. It's the kind of person that you ask them a simple "what's up", and you immediately regret asking them "what's up."
Now just to clarify, I am not talking about people that you know or that you work with or that you actually like. I share different things with people that I consider my friends all the time, whether I am at work or home. The kind of awkwardness I'm referring to only happens when it's someone that you don't know very well or someone that you wouldn't normally have a conversation with.
So if you ask me, unless you know the person or are friends with them, when someone asks you "Hey what's up?" or "How's it goin'?", a simple "Not bad" or even a "Not much" will suffice. It should be a general rule of society.
So to all the people that bag my groceries or pump my gas or bag up the clothes that I buy -- if I casually ask you "How's it goin?", I don't really want to know how everything in your life is going down the toilet. Or how everything is going perfectly, for that matter.
