I’m not entirely sure what it is about me that compels perfect strangers to tell me their life stories. I must give off some sort of “I want to listen to your TMI, I really do” vibe.
Sometimes it’s fun, I make a new friend. Sometime it’s slightly awkward, but it doesn’t last long and I forget about it afterwards.
And sometimes…
Well, let’s just say that I hope to never have to listen to another perfect stranger tell me about her identical twin who died. Or how she wound up in a mental institution. And, yes, this was the same person. Who was sitting next to me. On a plane. That was mid-flight. With no chance of escape.
Not that I didn’t consider pulling the emergency exit off of its hinges.
The best part? It was a SouthWestern flight. Which means that, not only did I send out the “tell me your horrible, depressing and slightly awkward story” vibes. I also sent out the “sit down next to me” vibes in the first place. Really, I brought it on myself.
Does anyone else hear inappropriate life stories? Or is this just me?
Oh man, that happens to me too, especially on trains! At some point they usually even say things like “you’re a really good listener – you should be a therapist!” I just blink in disbelief that they realize they could use therapy, but not that it’s inappropriate to get it from a stranger on mass transit. 😛
While I don’t get inappropriate life stories, the religious wackjobs apparently see a blinking neon sign over my head that says “SAVE ME!” They always seem to find me, like last night when to guys literally blocked my path after I exited the gym. They started asking me if I knew about the heavenly mother and that I should read the Bible blah blah blah. Apparently stating that I’m catholic wasn’t the right answer because that caused much flapping of the arms and “but this isn’t the Virgin Mary exclamations and you must listen to us!” Next time I’m going to say that I worship satan and eat babies for breakfast. Grr.
I’m like a magnet for crazy. I *make friends* everywhere I go. Random people love to talk to me. I am frequently asked for the location of the closest shelter/soup kitchen. And I have HORRIBLE plane karma… always sitting between the stinky guy who wants to talk to me and the lady with the screaming baby who chose to sit next to the window instead of on the end. My favorite is that I am almost always mistaken as someone who works at the supermarket/BestBuy/the gas station/the restaurant/etc.
We’d like a booth, please.
Really?