You can have a little collectivism, as a treat
A couple of weeks before I started writing text, I was in Lisbon at a natural wine bar. I’d show up alone with my journal, find myself in the middle of things, talk people up, and never write in my journal. This would continue for a couple of glasses, and then I’d head home. Sometimes I’d get a phone number; sometimes we’d get coffee; sometimes I’d find a new friend. This was all happening at the peak of the stupid virus in the United States, but not in Portugal – and besides, it was 70º out and the door was wide open with two air purifiers blasting. The effectively-outdoor wine bar was unlikely to be a superspreader event.
And so I spent a few weeks in an impossible city, learning how to strike up small talk with people again. I’m not insanely fond of small talk, but I’m good at it. I’m also good at asking questions and making you feel seen. Since I recognize small talk as the gateway to deeper connection, I do it.
In most places, small talk involves one of three things: sports, entertainment, or the weather. So I learn the basics about sports & entertainment, like how there is a soccer tournament going on right now, and Taylor Swift’s fans wrecked Ticketmaster. When certain popular TV shows are going on that I don’t care about, I browse their Wikipedia pages so I know what literally anyone is talking about. People seldom like talking about their jobs; in Europe, the gross capitalist American phrase “what do you do” is cleanly substituted for “what keeps you busy,” which is sufficiently open-ended to include any sort of hobby or independent work.
Then I spent a year and a half inside, and became incapable of engaging in anything short of full-throttle shadow work, which made me terrible at bars and also society. This is not great. One should, I hope, be able to engage with society. Leave the house, talk to strangers, vibe in person, and assume the good in others. This used to be the norm even recently, and it remains important, but it feels like a high bar these days.
The only way to figure out how to exist in society is to practice. One must go out there and do the thing. Our fear or humiliation or shaming keeps us from doing this, but it remains necessary. And to make matters worse, some people have no idea what to do when you talk to them. They look at you vacantly, shocked, put off. I’ve never been able to salvage one of these. But for every weird disaster, there are several others who are refreshed, happy that you approached them. We magnify the bad; it’s necessary to focus on the victories.
Living in a city, I get a lot of satisfaction out of the small moments of connection that we can bring one another every day. I feel like that dynamic is eroding now. I don’t know how to repair it. This makes me feel a little unmoored in my own home, and I don’t know how to show my own circle the path forward. Find a collectivist society of your own, I guess?
After Lisbon, I came back home, ran the important errand of my 40th birthday party, and headed over to Mexico for a couple of weeks. I went to a taqueria in my neighborhood in Mexico City, heard a Canadian accent next to me, and talked up a couple from Toronto who had just landed. It felt like we were old friends, just catching up. We sat there for two hours. We hugged at the end. I never saw them again.