Conversation openers

Chatting to new people can be difficult. You remember the social group I joined back in February? Well, it’s probably best to say it’s been a slow burner, which is another way of saying that I haven’t really had the time to get that involved in their events.

What tends to put me off is the fact that you have to book and pay up front, so if for any reason you can’t go (or, *whisper*, something better comes up), you might lose money. As a result I haven’t really got to know people at anything beyond a superficial level. Making new friends is hard work. It’s about discovering things you have in common. I quickly realise that my experiences/interests and those of others differ widely.

In the course of one evening, I find I’m:

· Saying that I find Morris dancers who have been roaming the town with painted faces a bit freaky, and finding that others don’t agree
· Trying to explain how Twitter works, and why it’s interesting to find out what Philip Schofield is doing
· Defending Facebook as a method of communication – if you use it properly!
· Leaving the question ‘why did you join?’ hanging in the air.
· Trying to find an adequate response to the query ‘couldn’t you find anything closer to home?’ when I say that I work in Liverpool
· Discussing just how many of the pubs of York I haven’t visited (quite a few actually, believe it or not), and that whilst I haven’t been thrown out of any of them, I have been asked to leave quite a few*
· Defending the wondrous venue which is the Evil Eye against the shocking allegation that it’s a ‘den of iniquity’ as ‘they sell absinthe**!’

They are generally nice, and friendly, people. It’s just that at the moment it feels like quite hard work. I am going to try and persevere, particularly as Autumn is approaching, and at the very least it will get me out of the house.

*Because they wanted to close, I hasten to add.
**well, yes, they do, but I’ve never been brave enough to try it.