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Friends in all the right places.
Mar. 4th, 2010 08:48 amA few months ago, I was in the supermarket stocking up with liquid essentials for a party with a friend. We filled our trolley to the brim with various liquors before arriving at the till to pay.
As we unloaded I got chatting to the cashier. No, of course we weren't having a party! I grinned at her. All this booze was purely for personal use and we'd be back tomorrow for more. She laughed and we got talking about what we were both doing tonight, how long her hours were, what she thought of her job and all the sorts of thing you talk to compete strangers about when you're stuck with them for about five minutes and you'll never see them again.
After we'd paid and were heading for the exit, my friend turned to me. "What was all that about?" he asked. "Are you running for election or something?"
As a general rule I'll happily chat to people. Most people, I reckon, are all right if you give them a chance to be and it's rare I'm proven wrong in that assumption. Of course you get the occasional wierdo, but if you're not going to see them again and the route to the exits is clear then you should be okay and able to extricate yourself from the situation fairly easily. Idle chit-chat is just one of the lubricants which oils the social wheels and it makes life a bit more interesting, so I do it.
The only exception to this is on public transport. The first rule of using public transport in London is that anyone trying to talk to you has recently escaped from Broadmoor and is carrying an axe. Actually, this isn't true all the time - not more than 80% - but it's still a handy safety tip. Instead, the rule of using London public transport is Never make eye contact.
I got to thinking about this yesterday on my way home on the tube, because MI5 have started advertising for secret agents in underground carriages. Surprisingly, their criteria for becoming a spy don't seem to be Can you run Parkour over the rooftops of Bogota after twelve units of alcohol? If not, don't apply. Instead, they focus on your ability to gathe information (which is a skill I never realsed spies needed from watching Bond and Bourne films, but apparently it's quite handy). The challenge they set is this: The person on your right. What's their date of birth? You have three stops.
It's an interesting challenge. In a social environment, like a pub or a club, if you can't get someone's birthday out of them in ten minutes you really aren't trying - but on the tube? Where the person to your right will make a dash for the nearest exit if you even look like you're gong to talk to them? I spent a few minutes thinking about it. I reckoned as a challenge the way to go about it would to pretend it's your birthday and you're a bit drunk and friendly. That gives a reason for breaking the social ice and also leads the conversation naturally to birthdays. Additionally, it'd be an easier challenge if there were two of you, as you could have a conversation between you and draw the third party in that way. There were several other methods of drawing people out I thought of, but none were guaranteed of success and all a little contrived.
Eventually, another method struck me, and I gave it a go. I nudged the person sitting next to me. "So", I said to her, pointing at the sign and smiling. "What's your date of birth?"
She glared at me like I was something she'd found on her shoe and got off at the next stop. Secret agenting. It's not as easy as it looks in the films.
As we unloaded I got chatting to the cashier. No, of course we weren't having a party! I grinned at her. All this booze was purely for personal use and we'd be back tomorrow for more. She laughed and we got talking about what we were both doing tonight, how long her hours were, what she thought of her job and all the sorts of thing you talk to compete strangers about when you're stuck with them for about five minutes and you'll never see them again.
After we'd paid and were heading for the exit, my friend turned to me. "What was all that about?" he asked. "Are you running for election or something?"
As a general rule I'll happily chat to people. Most people, I reckon, are all right if you give them a chance to be and it's rare I'm proven wrong in that assumption. Of course you get the occasional wierdo, but if you're not going to see them again and the route to the exits is clear then you should be okay and able to extricate yourself from the situation fairly easily. Idle chit-chat is just one of the lubricants which oils the social wheels and it makes life a bit more interesting, so I do it.
The only exception to this is on public transport. The first rule of using public transport in London is that anyone trying to talk to you has recently escaped from Broadmoor and is carrying an axe. Actually, this isn't true all the time - not more than 80% - but it's still a handy safety tip. Instead, the rule of using London public transport is Never make eye contact.
I got to thinking about this yesterday on my way home on the tube, because MI5 have started advertising for secret agents in underground carriages. Surprisingly, their criteria for becoming a spy don't seem to be Can you run Parkour over the rooftops of Bogota after twelve units of alcohol? If not, don't apply. Instead, they focus on your ability to gathe information (which is a skill I never realsed spies needed from watching Bond and Bourne films, but apparently it's quite handy). The challenge they set is this: The person on your right. What's their date of birth? You have three stops.
It's an interesting challenge. In a social environment, like a pub or a club, if you can't get someone's birthday out of them in ten minutes you really aren't trying - but on the tube? Where the person to your right will make a dash for the nearest exit if you even look like you're gong to talk to them? I spent a few minutes thinking about it. I reckoned as a challenge the way to go about it would to pretend it's your birthday and you're a bit drunk and friendly. That gives a reason for breaking the social ice and also leads the conversation naturally to birthdays. Additionally, it'd be an easier challenge if there were two of you, as you could have a conversation between you and draw the third party in that way. There were several other methods of drawing people out I thought of, but none were guaranteed of success and all a little contrived.
Eventually, another method struck me, and I gave it a go. I nudged the person sitting next to me. "So", I said to her, pointing at the sign and smiling. "What's your date of birth?"
She glared at me like I was something she'd found on her shoe and got off at the next stop. Secret agenting. It's not as easy as it looks in the films.
