In a message dated 4/19/00 5:37:43 PM Central Daylight Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

<< These days, when I go to dinner with people, conversations seem so often
to involve stories which show that the teller has 'been there, done that',
and which rarely lead to discussion. >>

David,

Possibly you need another set of dinner mates, not an easy task, or to be
more creative in your involvement. I don't too often have dinner out of the
house in a social setting, though lunch is always a pleasant option. By the
time I get home there is not much time or energy left for more than dinner,
and on weekends I like to hibernate, enough of relating with people for one
week. The few times I do go out, mind you I live in a zone of incredible
illiteracy where books are an odd rarity and if you want to hide money a book
is a safe place to do it -- which may seem odd for an obsessive reader but
suits me just fine, the conversations do tend to be about the lives of the
people I am feeding with... I get to say stupid and funny things, which cause
them to laugh, but for the most part I feel isolated, compartmentalized,
living in multiple lives, and subsume my desire to break out and say
incredibly intelligent things. It is sort of an intellectual starvation that
goes on while feeding the face. Actually, I do find the self-absorbed table
conversations interesting because they usually focus on what I consider
fairly odd human behaviour and by simply sitting there, listening, nodding my
head and smiling I get to hear all sorts of neat stuff about people that I
would not otherwise have the pleasure of exposure to. An author loves their
characters and they have to come from somewhere. I suggest you read O'Henry
and then look at your dinner companions to see how they fit to a short story.
It may not be fair play, but it can be entertaining.

][<en