Why is it people don’t want to think? And I don’t mean thinking like “should I wear a scarf today?” I’m talking about thinking of pretty much all thought possibilities beyond small talk. For instance, twice this year I have been speaking with individuals at bars, and naturally you start off with the simplicity of small talk.

“How was your summer?” “Good. I went to [location] for [positive integer] [time units].”

So I go back and forth on the small talk, slowly trying to find something in the response that can allow us to graduate to meaningful conversation. Sometimes nothing immediately presents itself, so I’ll try to just kind of move into it.

“So last time we spoke you mentioned [more interesting topic]. I was thinking about that and [comment about interesting topic].” “Ahhh… do we have to talk about that?” “Well, no. But, why not?” “I just want to come out and drink, I don’t want to have to think about complicated things.”

Ahhhhh! What? So if you go drinking, you can only talk about meaningless things. My life is too short for me to sit around and talk about stupid shit (unless the stupid shit has some creative humour value). I will tolerate a certain amount of small talk, but for the whole night? No thank you.

Which brings me up to my next gripe. I was at a gathering of people and everyone was chatting and whatnot. Somehow menstruation came up. Now, usually at this point, everyone becomes uncomfortable because, well, since menstruation is not often spoken about (especially with guys), everyone has to do the socially acceptable thing and act like their uncomfortable talking about it. So I mention that I read somewhere that women don’t necessarily need to stop taking the pill for a week to menstruate, but they do it to make sure they’re not pregnant. Well this sets off all the women saying I’m wrong (which is quite possible!)

“What pill was it? Was it [chemical name 1] or [chemical name 2]?” “I don’t remember, I don’t think I was using my photographic memory while I was reading the article.” “Do you even know how the pill works?” “I have an idea. But I’m not 100%. Explain it to me.” “You don’t even know how it works and you’re telling us how to take the pill?”

Ok. Notice how this moved from “I heard that you don’t have to take the pill in the fourth week” to “How dare you tell us when and when not to take the pill!” However, I’ve dealt with that enough times not to care about it. I was more interested at this point in how the pill worked. So I asked again for her to explain how the pill works. And again, she dismissed me. Why? If anyone wanted to know about anything I had knowledge of, I would be more than happy to explain it. There is nothing more frustrating then when someone tries to put you down for lack of knowledge, and then refused to help you to understand if you’re willing to learn. But whatever, I was never promised that people would be fair in life.

That’s it for now.