Most of the time I don't know what to say when I meet someone new. It's not that I'm shy; it's just that I don't really care about small talk. It's seems boring. Sometimes I'll drop a comment into the conversation that is just below surface level. Most of the time, it's ignored. The few people who respond usually become a friend. And I have to admit, I've found a lot more people in New York that want to have a conversation that goes deeper than what they watched on TV the night before than anywhere else I've lived.
But it's more than that. What really bothers me is that I don't get to have great conversations with my friends as often as I'd like. All of our schedules are so full that it's lucky if we see each other every few months. There is always so much to do that it seems like we don't have time to talk. Then I pay a professional counselor to listen to the things I don't talk about to my friends. I think even though I have the desire I may not have the skills at the art of conversation. I saw
an article on BBC about this topic.
Or it could be that the social pendulum is swinging to the other side. It wasn't long ago that most peoples main form of entertainment was to dine together and talk. European society was founded on these types of interactions. In some ways I envy this lifestyle, but it does have some serious drawbacks. People were born into their place in society and there wasn't much they could do to improve it. And I'm sure the community gossip was like high school but worse.
I think technological advances played a role in this change. I have difficultly comprehending the extent of how technology has changed the way we live, but I feel that it's made a huge difference. We spend most of our time working (or trying to forget about work). Men and women are both pursuing careers of our own making. We have more stuff in our homes than we know what to do with.
For the first time in human society, we are facing new social dilemmas. The most prevalent in my mind is the one I'm facing right now -- how do I balance my career and family? In the past unless a woman was a widow she never had to deal with this issue, and even then it wasn't quite the same situation. I'm not sure how I got off on this tangent, but it feels like the modern issues are somehow related to our new ways of communicating with each other.
