I live in a new area where I only know the doormen and a homeless person named Andrew, so I’ve discovered how conversation doesn’t flow naturally.  I’ve tried to prompt conversation with complete strangers just to exercise my jaw.  My usual lead-in:  

How did they get to this point?

The they refers to homeless people of any gender or age.  Like how exactly does a thirteen year old girl get to the point where the sidewalk is her bedroom?  No pink ruffles, no celebrity posters, no makeup table, no hand mirror, no bed.  This pseudo prompt gets a few nibbles that last a block or two.  That’s about it.  

I’ve learned if I have something in common with a person, conversation is effortless and interesting.  Like two people like to knit.  Love the theater.  Wear a Yankees cap.  Look Armenian.  That happened once and we ended up in a pub in Scotland exchanging numbers and tear-filled parting hugs.

I’m sure these observations shock not.  If you have zilch in common and the subject matter is the weather, that’s a signal to wiggle away gracefully (I’m not rude … yet).          

Looks like snow.

If you don’t like the weather now just wait an hour.

It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.

Let’s say you have a huge commonality, like growing up in the same town.  You instantly know 75% of this person and start talking fast and stammering to get your points in the basket.

Did you know blah blah blah?

You had Mr. Rogers for phys-ed too?  What a perve.

I shopped at Korvettes all the time.

I grew up in a small town where every mother shopped at Korvettes and every school kid wore the same outfit in brown or navy.  If you went to Hawaii over the summer you stuck out like Herman Munster in a midget factory.  Crass?  Philadelphia’s rubbing off on me.  

The six degrees of separation theory narrows to one if you grew up in the same town since everyone had a piece of Sidewalk Sally or didn’t have a piece of Sidewalk Sally.  She was Fairfield County’s sexual orientation scale.  Oh and Fairfield County, CT trumps any other county in everything.  Try beating me at table setting protocol.  You’re not better than me.

The relevance of this occupies me endlessly now that I live in a place where I don’t know a soul and consistently ranks in the top three rudest cities in America.  Not NYC.  It’s a town ironically known as the city of brotherly love.  I’ve never been exposed to people more rude.  New Yorkers don’t have time to acknowledge each other.  They operate on the offense.  Philadelphians play defense and create time to display their disgust of you, your dog, walking habits or outfit.  I’ve yet to spot a blank face.  I miss them.

Another thing.  Be a cooperative pedestrian.  Yield to the right.  It’s a rule, and don’t stop on a sidewalk to chat on your cell or hitch your girdle.  Move it to the side.  You’re not better than me.  

This turned into quite the rant lest you know me.  If so, you’ll get it as small details (fingernail upkeep is priority one) can fuel me for hours on end.  Flips flops after Labor Day gets my goat and uneven picture frames drive me insane.  I have a leveling app on my phone.  I can’t stop my quest to make the world flat.

A person once raved about the Philadelphia Ballet.  Well if you’re into dangling appendages and sickled feet I agree.  But I have friends in Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. You’re not better than me.

Until this place offers a class in Cordiality 101 and puts getting to know you over showing disapproval, I’m stuck being a weather forecast.  

It’s not complicated.  There’s an app for it.

Who knows himself a braggart, Let him fear this;

for it will come to pass that every braggart will be found an ass.