Conversations kill

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There comes a time when the old getting-to-know-you routine becomes exactly what it is: old.


This wasn’t such a problem in elementary. Back then, all I needed to do was run one lap around the playground with you as catcher/catchee and we’re good. Knowing your name wasn’t even necessary to commence social interaction via a game of tag, because I could obtain that at the end of the day with a sweaty, breathless introduction made in haste as your/my sundo impatiently honked the horn. Sure, I’ll get to know more about you, or more specifically, what shows you like to watch and what you think about every episode you’ve watched prior to our meeting, as well as a post-airing commentary for each episode hence, but the fact remains: there’s very little introduction needed beyond ‘Hi, I’m ______’ before I could steadfastly declare you my friend.


Jump to highschool, and somehow, getting to know a person gets a little more complicated. This is when I noticed that people had distinct ‘flavors’ with enough categories to bungle the best of the taxonomy majors.


This ranged from your general trouble makers who are the fodder of teacher’s nightmares, to the anime junkies who would inappropriately sprinkle Japanese words into any conversation regardless of whether or not the person they were talking to was a fellow anime junkie, to the homogenous group of guys who could only talk about basketball and masturbation, to the class-cutting FPS loving gamers who’s souls and allowances reside in the computer shop, and…a lot of regular schmoes in between.


It’s funny how in all four years in highschool, there was always someone new to meet, and yet somehow, despite my best efforts, I graduated without even exchanging one word with roughly a third of the population. This, in part, may be due to the fact that there was a huge shift in the method of meeting new people. There was no playground. Running in a skirt and leather shoes just didn’t seem right. And sadly, nobody seemed all that interested in running anymore. So to meet new people and to make new friends, actual conversations had to be had, and introductions made. But these introductions weren’t too hard. A cheerful, curious person could make friends easily enough, and since I was so used to knowing everyone (EVERYONE) back in elementary, I played the cheerful, friendly bit. And back then, there was an honest curiosity about meeting other people, and not just superfluously.


Then I went off to a college that boasted a population to rival an average town. I couldn’t even categorize people into flavors any longer. The ‘kawaii’ slinging, anime junkie I knew back in high school morphed into an actual linguistics major and mysteriously developed an aura of ‘quiet cool’. In the same vein, the seemingly pervy, chubby guy I wouldn’t have thought to hang out with was suddenly witty. And I was suddenly having trouble making new friends. The usual ‘what are you majoring in’ and ‘what province are you from’ got old real fast.


It was at this time that a friend of mine came up with an array of questions to serve as ice breakers. Questions like: if you were a superhero, what power would you have, and…actually I can’t remember the rest. Anyhow, it made sense to me. Who cared what you were majoring in? What insight could I possibly glean from a course that you may or may not have chosen for yourself? And given the fact that my geographical knowledge of my country sucks, what difference does it make to me what province you came from? So I tried asking some really weird questions from the get go. It got a conversation going and I could take it from there. And that’s how I met people in college.


Now let’s talk about work. At this point, getting to know a person took a huge amount of effort on my part. In my head, all I could think of was that these are work drones. They do not exist outside of the office. And if the person I’m sitting next to during training is someone I’m not likely to meet again, why go through all the trouble?


It’s like the standard list of questions grew into this huge mass of ‘what did you’s and ‘where did you’s when I wasn’t looking. Again with the province. I can do away with asking what course the person I’m talking to took because everyone in the room is an accountant. But now I have to ask where they went to college. What review school they went to. Why they chose this company. Why they chose this service line. It’s starting to feel like a job interview.


So to cut all the crap, I do away with all of this and ask them my (now) favorite go to question: If there was a zombie apocalypse right now, what would be the first thing you’d do?


To clarify: I ask this question not to get to know you. Well I do, but that is not this question’s primary purpose. I ask this question only to assess how interesting a person you are. This is because I am tired of going through the motions of getting to know new people who I encounter (and have to repeatedly encounter) in my life. I ask you this because I am tired of having to sift through loads of crap via introductions that span the length of the universe only to find out that I actually don’t get along with/care for what’s underneath. I ask you this because I want to know if I can jump into the meat of something on my mind and have an actual conversation with you.


That, and I want to assess how useful a companion you would be in the event of an actual zombie apocalypse. Also, as a sidenote, I’m pretty sure that in a zombie apocalypse, the lack of groaning and shambling is all the introduction you will ever need.