Earlier this evening I had the opportunity to attend a house party hosted by one of my high school classmates. As with most parties of the sort that I have ever attended, the reality was that I was mostly out of my element, though, if you ask me, I think that I did a pretty decent job of faking it. Tonight, though, I made an interesting observation about my own propensities as regards social interactions in such a setting; I’d far prefer to have one interesting conversation over any number of less interesting ones. I happened to find myself in a conversation with another one of my high school classmates at this party who was in a fairly technically/scientifically advanced field. The conversation began, as many of the evening did, with my half-interestedly asking what she was up to now and her responding and general cordiality and whatnot. The conversation continued a little and I found myself genuinely interested in what it was that she was up to but the conversation never really got too far past the generic. I tried, barely really, to steer the conversation in a direction such that it might involve interesting technical details but she was having none of it.
I ask you, Internet, is it unreasonable for me to want to have a scientific conversation at a house party? Is it weird for me to want to know what someone is studying/researching to a real extent? Am I a huge nerd?
No, I agree. I’d much rather have a single substantive conversation, irrespective of content, than many vapid ones.