I Want To Be Alone

Whatever happened to the fine art of small talk? Remember when you'd get on an elevator, and for 30 seconds, discuss the weather or the rising price of gas? These days, people seem to want to tell you every single personal detail of their lives, whether you want them to or not.

I can have a conversation with a wall, so I usually don't mind listening when people tell me their problems. I've heard some of the oddest stories listening to complete strangers and in fact, it's helped in my writing.

My husband, Matt, however, would rather repeatedly bang his head against the wall, walk across the desert in his bare feet or enter the witness protection program and relocate to Antarctica than speak to strangers.

When he's out, he avoids eye contact at all costs. He's almost learned sign language so that when people try to speak to him, they think he's deaf and move on. He should be fluent in another year or so.

He's also taken to wearing beige or tan clothing; he figures it helps him blend into the wall. However, I have to remind him that he's not part chameleon and that when you're 6'-3" you tend to stick out. Even Army camouflage can't hide him.

Recently, I had hernia surgery, and Matt took me to the hospital. We checked into the ambulatory unit, and to our chagrin, the waiting area was completely full.

I managed to grab a few seats next to each other and we sat down. I'd brought my book and Matt brought his Kindle. He placed it so close to his face, he was fogging the screen. He'd hoped that he was sending a "do not talk to me," signal.

To his dismay, the avoidance tactic didn't take. A lady was sitting across from us and asked which one of us was having a procedure done. I could sense his muscles tighten and heard the wisp of a groan as I answered her question

A full fledged conversation was born. The veins on his temple began to throb.

Then we slipped into the TMI (too much information) zone, where rather than polite conversation, we were treated to every second of her children's lives.

She has three children, scattered across the country. Her daughter just had twins with her third husband, but they had to resort to a test tube baby since he'd had a vasectomy. This husband, by the way, she likes much better than the troglodyte she finally divorced after having caught him cheating on her one too many times.

Another kid is studying to be a doctor, but apparently he's having a difficult time – this is his fifth college, but she thinks there's something wrong with universities these days. I mean, really, is calling the teacher a dirty hooker who probably got her degree at the School for Strumpets really that bad? He was just expressing himself.

I'm not even going to get into what her third son is up to; I can't get the image burned out of my brain, and if I explain it, I may never be able to.

The lady's husband was the one having surgery that day, but rather than going into the ambulatory triage room with him, she stayed out in the waiting area, where she could regale all of us with her spellbinding stories.

I couldn't believe that he was awaiting surgery all alone and here she sat. Then again, it's probably the most peace and quiet he's had in a long time. I'm willing to bet he was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

A few weeks later, we were at a different waiting room. I had to check in and the process was taking a considerable amount of time. Matt said he was going to sit down and read his Kindle -- he doesn't leave home without it.

I noted that the waiting room was almost empty, so I wasn't too concerned about him having to avoid anyone.

I'll try my best to do justice to the lengths that my husband employed in order to avoid contact of any kind with any person.

He was dressed in what I've taken to calling his uniform for when we're out, a non-descript beige shirt and matching pants. He wedged himself between the water cooler and a corner, stuffed himself into a chair barely large enough to house his tall frame, and all but pulled a potted palm in front of him.

Then he hid behind the Kindle.

When I had finished the check-in process, I turned and found that a lady and her daughter had pulled their chairs up in front of him. While one of them was holding back a palm frond, they were gleefully engrossed in a conversation that they'd apparently roped Matt in to having. He looked like he was standing in front of a firing line.

It turns out that the Kindle he'd hoped would help him avoid people acted more like a neon arrow flashing over his head. The reason they'd come over was to find out more about it.

The daughter was considering buying one, and even though he'd held the device up to his face and didn't even glance up as she rearranged chairs in order to sit in front of him, she began an endless barrage of questions.

He looked like a bleeding swimmer being circled by a school of hungry sharks.

When our names were called, he jumped up, dislodged the chair from his rear, and like an Olympic decathlon winner, nearly hurdling chairs as he sprinted through the door to our destination.

Even my mother in law, Gretchen, has fallen victim to the TMI crowd.

She related a story to me about her recent visit to her doctor's office. He's notoriously late, so she chose a comfy chair, and closed her eyes, hoping to catch a nap. Just as she'd settled in, another lady sat right next to her, and unceremoniously launched into what can only be described as a novella about her grown children's problems.

Gretchen is the kindest person I've ever known. So when she said that she wishes she could unhear the story that woman told her, trust me; it was bad.

Which leads me back to my original question; what ever happened to polite small talk?

I think that today's world is so full of technology, too many people spend most of their time in front of a computer instead of each other. The art of polite speech has almost been lost; replaced by texting.

Seriously, when was the last time you called a company and got a real person on the phone? Today, we have to endure a computer generated list of options and getting the person we'd hoped to speak to takes ten minutes; if we're lucky enough to have that privilege at all.

Maybe taking the time to actually have conversations with each other is the antidote to the loss of polite speech. And, if I'm being honest, unless I'm in a hurry, I really don't mind it when people begin speaking to me; unless what they're telling me is really horrible. In that case, I've got a surprising amount of Jackie Joyner Kersee in me.

In the meantime, if you happen to see Matt in an elevator, do me a favor. Look straight ahead and whistle.

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