Another winning interaction with a stranger

Late with apologies. Do these things happen to other people?

There’s a guy ahead of me at the bar. A stranger. I’m staring fiercely at the back of his head, trying to psychically extract pieces of information from his mind, like his name, his bank details, his happiest memories.

The psychic stuff is not going well. All I’m getting is hair. But so intense and laser-like is my telepathic concentration that I don’t see the glasses fall, I only hear them break.

For longer than I’d care to admit, I thought I might have shattered the glasses with my mind. But no. The guy behind the bar just knocked a tray full of empties. He runs off for a broom and says over his shoulder, ‘Talk amongst yourselves!’

A cruel thing to ask of two strangers in this day and age. Everyone knows that in these situations, the only thing anyone wants to do is pull out their phone and disappear into the ether for a few minutes. I’m in fact only one tap away from starting a game of chess when the guy in front of me turns around. Eek. He offers a curt, inner-city-neighbour sort of smile. Arms length. The kind of smile you might give a colleague you don’t really want to talk to while walking past them in the kitchenette.

He says, ‘What’s up?’

This timeless opening, calmly delivered, has me immediately on the back foot.

I urgently think of something clever and interesting and charming to say, then worry that I’ve spent too long thinking, then forget whatever I’d thought of, then totally panic, and then finally hurriedly fire off: ‘Not much mate what about you, mate?’

This cursed double-mating is a symptom of my larger disease: I am really bad at bantering with strangers. And it’s incurable. Give me a hundred hours and no word limit and a generous reader and I can eke out a bit of wit, sure. But on the fly and in the moment, my wit blows either uncomfortably hot or very very cold (examples abound elsewhere on this blog).

The guy at the bar says that nothing much is up with him either. It’s nice to find some common ground. He’s returned my return of his serve, and now we’re settling into a rally. After his iconic, laconic, Federer-like ‘What’s up?’ I feel the onus is on me to produce something with impact and drive. I cast myself in the role of Nadal.

‘HEY!’ I say, accidentally three decibels too many. The shock of the volume makes him jump, and I use the few seconds he takes to regain his composure as much needed thinking time.

There’s the obvious: Come here often? line to take, or the ever-present conversation starter that is sport. What I really want to do is explain the mind reading thing I was trying and ask him if by any chance his name is Dwayne?

‘So like,’ I say, building the runway while the plane is taking off, ‘if you travelled back in time to cavemen times, what one item would you take from the present day to really blow their minds?’

This is something that I do under social pressure: I fall back on a large bank of hypothetical questions I’ve accumulated over the years. It’s a compulsion. Bordering on a personality deficit. I think my hope is that an interesting and creative question will make me seem more interesting and creative than I actually am, but it rubs a certain subset of people the wrong way.

Dwayne is one such person. He gives me the same grim wince you might give a sick puppy that’s just thrown up on itself.

‘Ummm,’ he says.

How I ever thought this guy was Federer-like was beyond me. Federer doesn’t umm. The silence between us thickens with each ticking second, like a curdled cream.

‘Well you might say, for example, an iPhone 16,’ I offer, helpfully. ‘But keep in mind they don’t even have the BlackBerry, let alone the telegram, so the UX is gonna go right over their heads. And remember that they’re cavemen. So like, who are they gonna call?’

Dwayne makes a show of looking around. I can tell he’s searching for an escape route, for a person he knows. Never in all my life have I been so furious at bar staff. I’d gladly stand on broken glass if it meant an end to this conversation.

‘Alright,’ Dwayne says, with the same resigned air you’d give a relentless telemarketer that’s trying to sell you breathable oxygen. ‘Can it be plugged in?’

Obviously no, because then you’d have to invent electricity in a prehistoric cave. Still. It’s something. I’ve never been fishing, but I’m pretty sure if you get a nibble you’re not meant to tell the fish it’s a moron.

‘Sure!’ I beam. The rally is afoot.

‘Maybe like an aircon, then. Fujitsu.’

‘A fine choice,’ I say, and have to stop myself from adding a ‘Good sir,’ at the end of it. What the hell is wrong with me?

‘Or like a really big gun.’

‘That’d certainly get them talking.’

Dwayne grunts, satisfied. For a sickening moment I think he’s about to ask me what I do for work, but he apparently feels he’s done his time in my conversational prison and wheels around to face the empty bar.

I ought to cut my losses. More like cut my wins, actually, this is probably my most successful stranger interaction of the calendar year. But what would Nadal do if Federer turned around and opened up his instagram in the middle of a point? Exactly. He’d tuck his hair behind his ears, de-wedgie himself, and hit a screaming forehand into the open court.

So I tap Dwayne on the shoulder.

‘Nutribullet portable blender,’ I say.

‘What?’ he says.

‘I’d whiz up some leaves, maybe some mud. Make those cavemen a smoothie.’

‘Oh.’

‘That’s my answer.’

‘Sure.’

‘It’s pretty good.’

‘I guess.’

‘Think about it.’

‘Okay.’

‘Are you thinking about it?’

‘Yep.’

The barkeep returns with a broom and his apologies, and gets to sweeping right away. He must pick up on the weird curdled cream vibes in the air, or maybe he just sees me staring psychic daggers at the back of Dwayne’s neanderthal skull.

‘So…’ the barman says, pulling a schooner of pale ale for Dwayne. ‘What’d you guys talk about?’

The question seems to catch Dwayne in the throat and he wheezes out his now trademark, ‘Ummm, ummm.’ He’s embarrassing himself. Even Djokovic has respect for his opponent.

I clap Dwayne on the back like we’re old chums.

’Oh, you know,’ I say. ‘The stone age.’

‘One of our better Ages,’ says the barkeep.

Dwayne hurries away without so much as a cheerio. Frankly good riddance. We’re better off without him. I ask the guy behind the bar the same question after I order my drink and he thinks a moment. Really thinks. It’s kind of him.

‘Remote control helicopter.’

‘Sick,’ I say. I smile and I nod and all is right with the world. I thank him for his time and wander off quite happily, honestly close to tears at the joy of the success of the interaction. There’s a commotion behind me but I pay no notice.

I walk all the way back to my table, when a heavy hand claps down on my shoulder. Turns out the barkeep, the slowest retriever of brooms in the southern hemisphere, has quite a turn of pace when chasing vagrants.

‘That’ll be $10.40, mate,’ he says.

I’ll chalk it up as a draw.