Mary Lucia: watch out for these conversation starters
by Mary Lucia
October 04, 2016
There are lots of ways to start a conversation. Here are a few that make me want to run in the other direction and murder a kitten:
"Would you be available…?"
I promise you, this question rarely is followed by anything I would ever want to do. I've never heard it followed up with, "Would you be available to stuff hundred-dollar bills into your pockets while getting a scalp massage from Joe Perry and simultaneously raid Alison Mosshart's closet?" Instead, it's more along the lines of: judge a battle of the bands, come in early, stay late, let someone who is really interested in getting into radio shadow you for a day.
Anything involving a parade, a name tag, children's activities or "brain pick." And if the word "camping" is suggested, I dry heave and flee.
Same goes for:
"Would you be willing…?"
Think about that one. Willing? The intention in that deadly question already suggests suffering: "Would you be willing to eat Thanksgiving dinner in the 7th St Entry bathroom with a sales rep from Comcast while watching films about Vivisection?"
Here's another social dirty-bomb…
"I recently met someone who said they know/knew you."
Again without fail, it's never a person you do actually know or want to know.
And "knew"??? Run like hell. There is a good reason they are someone you knew, past tense. DEFCON 1 is "I met someone you once dated" — I'm gone before the word "dated" has even left their pie hole.
The socially unacceptable coping mechanism I've adapted with these conversation starters is to literally disappear. I mean it; ask anyone who knows me well. I receive more text messages from friends who say "Are you still here?" I usually receive these messages while I'm washing my makeup off in my bathroom at home in boxer shorts.
On a scale from 1 to Lori Barbero I'm barely a 2.
God bless Saint Lori. The holy grail of social comfort and grace, when she's not rocking out on stages, splitting the atom, bartending, inspiring thousands or DJ'ing. I like to imagine in her limited free time, she's at the Greyhound bus terminal with gift bags greeting new arrivals, young bands coming to town.
There's an M. Ward tune called "Magic Trick" that could've been written about me:
People come, people go
Sometimes without goodbye
Sometimes without hello
She's got one magic trick
Just one and that's it
Oh she disappears
It's like, now you see her, now you don't
You think you're gonna get to know her now, well you won't
She's got one magic trick
Just one and that's it
Oh she disappears