I was living in Kanata at the time and waiting for the bus to get to work. It was a hot day so I was dressed lightly. Out of the blue, while I was reading (the bus service was terribly slow and unreliable), I got that thing I always dreaded: some guy saying “hello”. Whenever some guy I’ve never met just suddenly starts talking to me for no reason, I get on the defensive. I’m smart enough, though, not to respond with hostility because if it comes to that, I’m smaller and weaker and liable to lose should things get physical.
So I put on my pleasant face, internally wondering what this guy wanted. Was he trying to sell me something? Recruiting for a cult? Sex pest? All those cynical thoughts were echoing in my head as I replied “Hi” and returned to my book.
“Is it always this hot this time of year?”
Dammit! He was still trying to chat me up! What is this guy’s deal?
“No, this is unusual for Ottawa.” (Kanata was separate from Ottawa at the time, but we generally referred to the region, not the specific city.) “But you know the old saying: don’t like the weather here? Wait five minutes.”
And back to my b… DAMMIT! HE’S STILL TALKING!
So against my will, just by the forces of pretending to be polite, I was dragged into a long and rambling conversation about anything under the (as mentioned, hot) sun. I couldn’t get a handle on why this guy was talking to me. He wasn’t selling me anything, nor trying to recruit me for anything, nor was he making a pass at me. I just couldn’t figure out what he wanted.
Until it dawned on me. Derek (that was his name; it came out during conversation) was just a small town guy (from northern Ontario; that came out in conversation too) who was profoundly lonely in the “big” city. He’d come to town for work but was having problems adjusting to “big” city “fuck you and mind your business” attitude. (He’d have died of anaphylactic shock in Toronto!) He was so starved for human contact he just started talking to a random stranger at a bus stop to see if he could make any connection of any kind.
And because I was brought up to be polite, I got dragged into his attempt to making contact and, quite against my will, actually made contact.
We parted when my bus came, all smiles and friendly. There were no inevitably-broken promises of keeping in touch. We both knew that it wasn’t going to happen. (This is before mobile phones were commonplace so exchanging numbers wasn’t an option.) But over the course of that rambling and weird-turned-creepy-turned-warm-hearted conversation he visibly brightened up. He’d made contact.
This was by turns weird, creepy, and wholesome.
I was living in Kanata at the time and waiting for the bus to get to work. It was a hot day so I was dressed lightly. Out of the blue, while I was reading (the bus service was terribly slow and unreliable), I got that thing I always dreaded: some guy saying “hello”. Whenever some guy I’ve never met just suddenly starts talking to me for no reason, I get on the defensive. I’m smart enough, though, not to respond with hostility because if it comes to that, I’m smaller and weaker and liable to lose should things get physical.
So I put on my pleasant face, internally wondering what this guy wanted. Was he trying to sell me something? Recruiting for a cult? Sex pest? All those cynical thoughts were echoing in my head as I replied “Hi” and returned to my book.
“Is it always this hot this time of year?”
Dammit! He was still trying to chat me up! What is this guy’s deal?
“No, this is unusual for Ottawa.” (Kanata was separate from Ottawa at the time, but we generally referred to the region, not the specific city.) “But you know the old saying: don’t like the weather here? Wait five minutes.”
And back to my b… DAMMIT! HE’S STILL TALKING!
So against my will, just by the forces of pretending to be polite, I was dragged into a long and rambling conversation about anything under the (as mentioned, hot) sun. I couldn’t get a handle on why this guy was talking to me. He wasn’t selling me anything, nor trying to recruit me for anything, nor was he making a pass at me. I just couldn’t figure out what he wanted.
Until it dawned on me. Derek (that was his name; it came out during conversation) was just a small town guy (from northern Ontario; that came out in conversation too) who was profoundly lonely in the “big” city. He’d come to town for work but was having problems adjusting to “big” city “fuck you and mind your business” attitude. (He’d have died of anaphylactic shock in Toronto!) He was so starved for human contact he just started talking to a random stranger at a bus stop to see if he could make any connection of any kind.
And because I was brought up to be polite, I got dragged into his attempt to making contact and, quite against my will, actually made contact.
We parted when my bus came, all smiles and friendly. There were no inevitably-broken promises of keeping in touch. We both knew that it wasn’t going to happen. (This is before mobile phones were commonplace so exchanging numbers wasn’t an option.) But over the course of that rambling and weird-turned-creepy-turned-warm-hearted conversation he visibly brightened up. He’d made contact.