My rare outing on a Wednesday night has enlightened me to a point, but moreso allowed me to ask my valued readers a very important question. What is the appropriate strategy or game plan even when you are out with a friend or a couple of friends and some one comes up to your table who you would not, in a million years, be interested in speaking to...but you know that you know them or know that they know that you know them?
It's a tough situation...and I'm sure the confusing nature of that last sentence didn't help much either, but seriously? Talk about an awkward situation, right? Well what do we do in these situations? I always try my hardest to engage them in conversation. I'm not interested in anything they're saying...and that's just me being honest. If I was interested, maybe we would have been friendly in high school back when I knew you. Being that that was almost 10 years ago at this point..yeah...I have no interest in anything you're saying to me right now. But I'm gonna go ahead and think that this is an OK situation in which one can be fake and it's socially acceptable. Am I wrong?
How do we approach these people? And then....to add more fuel to the fire...what is the deal with these non-friends always inviting people that you actually DON'T know from a homeless person on the streets of DC to sit down at your table. PLUS...this person has a question mark tatoo on his neck!! What the hell am I supposed to say to this guy? Not a clue.
If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Clearly this is not one of my favorite positions to be in, but I do like to be prepared at all times.
Thanks for the help.
OK, I agree with you up to a point. I think that you should always engage in conversation, but I also think you should give the person you have not seen, may not have been friends with, etc. the benefit of the doubt that they too may have changed in those 10 years and become, hopefully, more interesting, mature, etc. What may seem like wasting your time for 30 minutes or so and actually listening, is the polite thing to do. I can certainly give a person a chance to see if I would ever be interested in having "another" conversation with him or her. This does not apply to complete weirdos, or perverts. My opinion.
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