Getting Londoners talking? Noooooo

[almostwitty]

While shove_this_job was in London, she'd often shock me speechless by telling me she’d talked to two, or four random strangers in London - AND THEY'D TALK BACK! I am of course, putting this down to her irrepressible (and believe me, I’ve tried!) optimism, bounciness and general all-American (in a positive way) manner.

Something odd must be in the London water supply, because there’s now a campaign to Get The Tube Talking on Wed 17 December. They suggest engaging fellow commuters on the tube with some small chit-chat and small talk. Except they haven’t actually suggested what lines of small talk to use - and I for one, am not that brilliant at chatting to random strangers. What can I say that isn’t too boring? Hell, I just had a meeting, and I completely forgot to shake the guy’s hand on my way out the door.

Also, these days given the sheer amount of shopping bags that bring out the inner environmentalist Marxist in me, I’d be far likely to bark out “WHY. ON. EARTH. DO. YOU. NEED. SIX SHOPPING BAGS AND TWO HANDBAGS? GET OUT OF MY WAY!”

Fortunately, I take the bus to work. Or bike.

Originally published at almost witty. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[f-l-i-r-t.livejournal.com]

I used to talk to strangers all the time but the convestation would go something like...

"Hello, can I help you...?

They would look away and mumble.

I would say, "I didn't mean to startle you but since you have been drilling a hole in me with your eyes for the last 20 minutes I thought maybe you needed something, now I see you are just rude. Cheers!"

I am so nice, ha?

I found English people, London particularly so difficult, it is one of the reasons that I left. You compliment a stranger and they look at you like you just killed their first born. *L*

Good for her!

Good luck to the 'tube talking' endeavour. I think it is a great idea, don't see it working, but great idea. After 7/7 people were more friendly for a bit, then they got more suspicious and even less friendly. in my experiences.