thanate | micro conversations (Reply)

I've been contemplating micro conversations-- the kind you have with the checker at the grocery store or waitstaff at a restaurant; complete strangers who are sharing space and possibly nominal goals with you for a few moments. Obviously the first thing that stands out is that having someone small and cute around wildly skews the average interaction towards children, though I still get people who want to tell me about my hair. I lost count of how many people have told us about another child who sucked on his or her middle two fingers after five or six, and that was a while ago. I'm constantly asked for her name (um, aren't we socialized not to share that?) and/or age, and some people just skip talking to me and talk to her instead, which is also a bit creepy.

But beyond that, there are also the weird little bits that make it clear that you're tracking parallel universes with the person you're talking to: the waitress who assures you, "Oh, no that's not weird at all!" as if she expects you to be worried what she (or the universe at large) thought about what you'd like to eat; or the use of "that was totally my fault" instead of "I'm sorry." (These things do not actually mean the same thing.)

I feel like there is characterization potential in the tension between the not-quite-sensible thing that the stranger says to you and the reaction to it; possibly something a little more subtle than that thing