Week 2.5, Day 3 - A Day of Casual Conversation
Yeah I understood what you meant with that saying MoveYourAss. Don't worry, your English is
much better than my German. In fact, all I know is the few words I've learned from movies or Rammstein, and how to count from 1-10.
Today (Saturday, October 2, 2004) I spend way too much time at my house, but I think I made the most of the time I had while I was out.
I had to take some books back to the library, so my first stop was there. As you might expect, this is not a good place for doing boot camp exercises. Even saying hi is hard because everyone is so engrossed in what they are doing, whether that is reading, using a computer, or browsing the stacks. I did get one hi from a library employee though, which I warmly returned, hehehehe. I spent about 20 minutes getting some books that I wanted, then went to check out. I was going to start a conversation with the lady checking me out, but got interrupted. Oh well, on to my next location, Home Depot.
I spent quite a while there just walking around, and got a good number of hi's in (I've got to keep that skill fresh.) I did find people more receptive than I did in Week 1. I think this is because I wasn't so "desperate" to get a hi back since that wasn't the exercise I was focusing on. Also I think I give off more of a friendly and approachable vibe now than I did before the boot camp.
Not long after arriving I had a short conversation with a Home Depot employee, but I'm not counting that because I was asking about something in relation to his job. Plus the conversation was well under 2 minutes. I'm starting to think using employees for conversations in the Week 2 exercises is cheating, because it is too easy and they almost have no choice but to talk to you. But they make good practice.
I did have a decent conversation with a couple in the roofing section. They were looking at shingles so I figured they had some roof damage from the hurricanes as I did. Perfect conversation opener, since simple rapport could be built based on our common troubles. Of course it ended up being a conversation only about that, though before I was done they seemed to think I was some roofing expert (really I had just checked a few things online.) I'm not sure if they were even a couple, since the man mentioned that she had hurricane damage instead of saying they had it. The women was pretty cute, but a bit old for my tastes (mid to late 30s.)
I think I need to improve my conversation skills so that I ask some more personal questions from people and get them to open up a bit. Having a short, casual, superficial conversation is not that hard, and if that is all I do with women, I won't be getting many numbers. I also have not been practicing any C&F with strangers I talk to, though it could be argued that with men in particular it would be pointless (certainly the ****y side of it is.)
After a couple more rounds about the store I had everything I needed and went to check-out. As usual I picked the slowest line, but despite wanting to talk to the people in the line with me, I just couldn't find a good opener.
One interesting thing did happen with the checkout girl that has happened to me before. As my credit card was processing she sort of looks over to the guy at the next register and tiredly asks what time it was. Since I had just looked at my phone (which doubles as my watch
), I told her is was 6:10 (PM of course.) She then says "only 20 more minutes", therefore telling me she was getting off at 6:30. I ask if it had been a rough day and she said it had just been really busy. So she gives me a nice smile as she is giving me my receipt and tells me to have a nice night.
Anyhow, the point of all this is to ask if the "I'm getting off soon" type of thing is an IOI? She wasn't that hot, so I'm not that worried that I missed out on something, but back in college this also happened to me with a bag girl at the supermarket, except she was very hot. I saw her a few times actually, and even in those days I knew she was at least a little interested, but being the puzzy I was I never did anything about it. Any insight on this would be appreciated.
Convo count for the day: 1
Total convo count: 2
HB convo count: 0