This may be a particularly scatter-brained and random digression. I just had a sorely disheartening experience in downtown Indianapolis, but it’s at the same time left me with a weird positivity carrying me through this hungover morning.
It’s very easy to shoot yourself in your own foot when you go into a conversation or new interaction with someone and carry a ton of preconceived notions. Filled to the brim with judgmental and angry thoughts is no way to approach getting to know someone and is certainly not friendly. I want it stated explicitly that I know the difference. That is, when I’m “just being a dick” and everyone comes across as “the worst,” it stands in contrast to genuinely openly approaching people with the hopes of becoming informal friends.
The part that is so disheartening is when you try and end up getting the kind of responses that I seem to come across. I want it to be broken down into its smallest parts. You can go from buying a beer for someone to polite conversation about their relationship or job. Things move so seamlessly until they violently derail, but you don’t get the visual carnage to accompany the failure.
I invited a couple older, mid forties, gentlemen to dine with me at Steak N Shake. They had been drinking. I had been drinking. It was one of those “hey, I’m alone and feeling talkative, let’s hang out” moments. I’ve done things like this a few times now because I’m wildly intrigued by the perspectives of “the older crowd.” Unfortunately, no matter how much try, the conversation always seems to break down in the same kind of ways.
First, I know I “fuck up” in genuinely asking people about things. It becomes increasingly apparent that many people simply aren’t thinking about shit. I don’t mean to be rude, but I end up looking that way because I’ll ask their perspective, and they’re left holding their hat with a dumbfounded or depressed look.
Second, without fail the conversation comes back around to a discussion about how old I am. No matter how many examples I may offer as to what has shaped my perspective, I’m still “just 27.” It’s not to say I’m not sympathetic to age-ist sentiments, but at the same time, I don’t actively try to make someone with more life experience seem marginal.
What’s screwed up about that though is that they aren’t being malicious. They’re simply...simple. The only way they can understand me is through “millennial” connotation and judgment. It doesn’t matter if I’ve more drug, sex, business, or strife experience. I’m still just a kid, “a few years older than my own!”
Third, there’s a point where the conversation shifts from having a discussion, to judging and assessing the conversation. Instead of answering a question that goes, “what is your opinion about such and such issue,” I’m instead deflected with commentary. “Oh, that’s too vague, I could never.” “You’re approaching this from such an inadequately broad perspective, nothing I say is gonna make sense.” “Ummm, you’re young. I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong, but I will state over and over again that you are young as if to suggest there’s a problem while I insist otherwise.”
It kills me to see people give up the conversation. We were going for over an hour until it apparently shifted towards questions that required more meat than they were willing or capable of cutting. Then, it’s almost without fail the switch to comments like, “I’m gonna remember this conversation forever! You are soooo insightful and doing sooooo may things right and I believe in you! Man, that was exhilarating and fun and I hope to see you again sometime! Geez, you sure have given me a ton to think about, but damned if I don’t need to shuffle my way out the door.”
It’s again, I feel like it’s coming from a positive and endearing place, but it feels so...ick. I didn’t open a conversation with you and pay for your meal to have endless deference paid to my ability to ask questions. I’m sad they were dodged. I’m scared about the implications of lobbing low-ball “so what do you think in general” questions and they’re treated like an infectious disease. I’m disappointed that people rush to defend this inability or unwillingness to think and offer that it’s a kind of run-off of me being too forward or intimidating. I’m not body language and polite conversation illiterate. I usually have a solid hour of conversation before the moment things change as evidence things were capable of being something more.
I’m tired of perpetually learning the same lesson that people aren’t worth it. They’ve nothing to offer. They’re good in small doses. It’s an endless burden and responsibility on your part to carry a positive and accepting disposition because you won’t be offered it in kind. I hate that I have to look forward to being disappointed by going out and trying to connect with people. I hate that what I want is regarded as something special or hard. It’s talking. It’s thinking. These things aren’t magic. They shouldn’t be scary.
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