Conversation Avoidance

As you may or may not be aware, I don't always want to talk. With my friends, I'm perfectly conversational, but with people I don't know, I tend to be more reserved. This weekend, I have finally found a perfect method for tactfully avoiding having to talk to people. Although this method may only be effective on nerdy guys, I've found that they make up a very large percentage of the people I don't want to talk to.

I've tried other methods before. Last weekend, I went on a community service overnight with a few other kids from my church. After dinner, we were told to go sit in booths (like those tables with benches you eat dinner at) to listen to a speaker. I slid in next to Liza, facing in the direction of the speaker. At that point, a freshman from a different chruch's group who I had thought was a perfectly normal boy came over. "Do you mind if I sit here?" he asked.

"Not at all," I responded, polite as always. He sat down, the speaker began talking. It was then that Craig (I don't actually remember his name. If it actually is Craig, I'm very sorry) decided to act. He shifted closer to me. I leaned towards Liza. He scooted a bit more towards me, so his hip bumped mine. I deliberately moved into Liza, squishing her against the wall. I then had to stay completely still for the rest of the speech to avoid giving the scooter more of a wrong impression than I already had.

This method was ineffective because my leg fell asleep and because Liza made fun of my repeatedly afterwards. So, in an effort to avoid future awkward encounters, I developed a fool-proof avoidance method.

This weekend, I tucked my math team practice packets into may bag. Whenever I didn't feel like talking, I would begin doing the packets. When someone I didn't want to talk to came over, I would find a problem that I couldn't do and give it to them. This worked well the first time, when my lab partner, Rube, spent 20 minutes trying to solve a problem that he still couldn't figure out.

So, when I was on the train home, Sean, who I don't really know, intercepted me while I was waiting in line for the bathroom (alone, because mario drove in with his dad again), waited while I used the bathroom, walked to the platform- still talking- then asked me, about ten minutes in, what my name was. When we got on the train, I pulled out a book, but the chatter continued. So, I pulled out the math packets. Sean proceeded to solve Rube's unsolvable circle-hyperbola tangency (apparently it requires calculus), then stare over my shoulder and correct my math for the rest of the trip.

So much for actually getting my homework done.