Conversations that never happen

[Hephaestus]

Today, I was walking out of a store, and overheard/observed and older guy striking up a conversation with a younger dude about the old car the younger dude was driving. It was an old station wagon: something along the lines of a Nomad. Bit of a beater but it was bloody old.

So the conversation starts with:

OG: "Wow. I used to have one of these when I was younger."

*nostalgic staring

OG: "They're great"

YG: "Yep"

And more staring and possibly chit-chat about nothing while staring at the old car.


I'd had similar encounters with my first motorcycle, which was built on a pattern that had been developed around WWII. It's a classic design, and it attracted more attention than I'd bargained for. It was probably the most annoying thing about owning the bike--and it was a bloody fussy bit of machine.


Then it occurred to me that these sorts of conversations don't happen with every older vehicle. For example, I bought a replacement car for a POS that wasn't making it anymore. My boss knew about it, and asked me what I got. I told him: a Plymout Reliant. Aptonym not intended but whatever.

His response was: "Oh! A K Car. I had one of those once."

You know what didn't happen? We didn't go out and look at it. The reason wasn't just because we had work to do either. If I'd said "I got a sweet deal on a '69 Shelby Mustang, you can bet your keister his keister would have bounced right up from his accounting work and he'd have bid me to lead the way to spend some time staring at my car.


So then it occurred to me that those sorts of conversation events will never ever happen when some kid buys a beater Caravan. The very idea seems absurd, doesn't it? I mean, it's not just because it's a van, but because it's a 'meh' mini-van. If it were a van, the conversation might happen.

"Wanna see the air-brushed wizard on the side of my van?"

"Hell Yeah!"



So what are other conversation events that you know of that happen with the right stimulus, but that definitely don't happen with an objectively similar stimulus?


Note: I expect this thread to go nowhere. Whether it does or not, I consider it a win.

[El D.]

Demetri Martin said that his interest in hearing about the intuitiveness of a woman's cat is directly correlated with her level of cuteness.

[Sappho]

A lot of daily small wins end up as conversations that never happen, especially for the kinds of things introverted intuitives enjoy. Imagine these projected answers to a simple question like:

Conversation 1.
"How was your weekend?"
ESxx: "I went paragliding for the first time and it was SICK!"
--> Crowd cheers.

Conversation 2.
"How was your weekend?"
INxx: "I didn't want to meet any people on Sunday but I had no food at home, so I used the internet, flour and dry yeast to bake my own bread!"
--> Crowd doesn't cheer, partially because introverts generally don't address crowds.

I hazard the guess that, due to the projected reaction, conversation 2 doesn't happen nearly as often as conversation 1. Which I find rather odd. Objectively speaking we have two people recounting their individual, impossible-to-actually-share subjective experience, so why is one perceived to be superior to the other?

[jigglypuff]

A lot of daily small wins end up as conversations that never happen, especially for the kinds of things introverted intuitives enjoy. Imagine these projected answers to a simple question like:

Conversation 1.
"How was your weekend?"
ESxx: "I went paragliding for the first time and it was SICK!"
--> Crowd cheers.

Conversation 2.
"How was your weekend?"
INxx: "I didn't want to meet any people on Sunday but I had no food at home, so I used the internet, flour and dry yeast to bake my own bread!"
--> Crowd doesn't cheer, partially because introverts generally don't address crowds.

I hazard the guess that, due to the projected reaction, conversation 2 doesn't happen nearly as often as conversation 1. Which I find rather odd. Objectively speaking we have two people recounting their individual, impossible-to-actually-share subjective experience, so why is one perceived to be superior to the other?

with conversation 2 i’d say it like “oh it was ok, i did some work and baked bread yesterday.

[ensuing expression of holding in laughter at the randomness & absurdity of circumstances communicates how that went]

how about you?”

if they’re interested they’ll mention it, but if they were just asking to talk about their weekend that’s alright as long as it’s interesting.