I recently had to start riding the bus again when I took a job in Seattle. I could drive, but it's a 40 mile commute back and forth from my house and I'd have to pay $35 a day to park, so naturally I passed. There's a phenomenon that I remember from my pre-driver's license days about strangers always wanting to make small talk on the bus and it turns out nothing has changed in the 10 years or so since then. And it seems that working in Seattle means that this phenomenon extends further than the confines of a Pierce Transit bus.
Why do total strangers try to strike up conversation with me? I don't like it. If I don't have a reason for talking to you, and I don't know you, then I don't feel inclined to chat just for the hell of it. I like my quiet time and if I could have some little isolated cube to sit in on the bus, I'd welcome it.
I'm not mean to people who try to chat with me, but I don't reciprocate heavily, and I certainly don't go out of my way to look like someone who's up for that sort of thing. I don't make eye contact, and put in my earphones, etc. But it doesn't seem to work. I can understand if I'm dealing with someone who is mentally unwell, in which case they have an excuse for not "getting it", but I'm drawing lots of "normal" people as well.
Is their some part of the social contract that I'm not adhering to; or is it the other way around? Part of me hates this because I have this hardwired distrust of anyone who approaches me for anything in downtown Seattle, mainly because I HATE downtown Seattle for reasons that could fill a whole new discussion topic, but let's just leave it at this: Whenever a stranger starts talking to me, they are UP TO SOMETHING until proven otherwise, and usually they aren't proven otherwise. So my inclination when someone starts blathering is to say "Let's just fast-forward to the part where you ask me for change and I say no and get on with our lives.", but I'm not that evil. It's all internal.
So tell me, is their something wrong with me or with everyone else?
So much of social interaction with the general public with no goal in mind (read: strangers) is just a huge chore to me that I'd much rather avoid, but that I do anyway because I'd feel bad if I was rude to them.
I mean, I don't think I'm a sociopath. If I saw someone fall down or something, I would make sure they were okay, and I'd expect the same for me, but good grief people, if you're lonely, that's not MY problem. Get a puppy. Nothing wrong with making friends, heck all of you were strangers to me at one point, but I get the feeling these people don't have as discriminating tastes in friends as I have.
