I ought to find myself a sports team and a girlfriend, for then I shall never run out of things to talk about when someone who does not know me feels obligated to talk to me.

I had dinner tonight with a fellow employee from out of town and the poor chap spent the entire time trying desperately to come up with things to talk about. After a short night and a long day my eyes were crossing and I would have been just as happy to experience some comraderie in silence, but, partly because of my general fatigue, I did not fully realize how hard I was making this chap’s job. That is, I answered his questions amiably enough, but I did not do much asking in return or following up. Since he continued to come up with one question after another, I sort of got the idea he was very interested in me, for some reason.

But I think he was just doing is mannerly darndest to be polite and I let him do all the work. Very poor form. I ought to give him a break from thinking up questions that nobody really wants to hear the answers to.

But I don’t have a sports team. Or a girlfriend. Or a hobby. Or anything I do in my own time. Or probably any interest in your possession of any of those things.

I like talking business, and I don’t like lying, and I am not good at even “spinning”–that is, being selective in which and how much of my opinion I disclose–so mainly if we are talking business I am jeopordizing my career by blithely voicing what I think.