On Social Rudeness

So maybe we aren’t quite that rude in social conversation, but I would bet more than 50% of the time, someone from St. Louis asks what high school a person went to before asking them their actual name. It’s the norm we grew up in, and the more we hear it, the more we think to ask it. Plus, we find out more and more people from other high schools in St. Louis by always asking the question, which then only encourages the next question.

Following the question of what high school comes my favorite part of the conversation. I get to act all popular and ask if they know any of the same people I know from that high school, even if I only know one or two people from their high school. Then if there isn’t any matches in the people I know and they know, well the conversations dead, and quite awkward. I sit there and wait, brainstorming in my head another conversation starter, but realize my hit question, my number one, unbeatable conversation starter just failed miserably. I’ve always wondered about a chance when I hear someone get all excited and ask me, “Oh, you’re from St. Louis?” and I respond with,

“Yes, I went to Mehlville High School, no I don’t know any of the people you know from there and no, I didn’t like my high school, so don’t try to be smooth with lame jokes about my high school such as Smellville, because I can probably crack better jokes about my own school since I found it quite annoying. Oh, and no I do not like the Cardinals, Rams or Blues, but yes I am a huge sports fan. Yes I know, how shocking? Does that cover just about everything?”

While this would be very rude and probably not make me many friends, it would certainly make for an interesting response from the person who just had all his brain buster questions answered without even speaking a word. At the very least, it would make me sound somewhat like an individual instead of going with the typical life strategy of waiting for someone to ask a question and then replying with a quantitative answer as short as possible following up with “What about you?” Then again, does being a jerk really make one an individual, or does it just make one cynical?