I have an old friend like that. He would and did talk to anyone on the 4 hour daily train commute. None are friends. 25 years in a singles club and I don't think that he has any friends that last more than a few years. He is travelled, intelligent to a point, sensible, football mad and drinks. After 76 years, the last 40 mainly lived without a woman and yet he is still out there in the herd looking for one.

@FrayedBear i'm not friends with anyone i have met on a bus where i currently live, not solely because i no longer ride public transportation. when i lived in los angeles, i made friends on the bus, since we turned out also to be neighbors. but i do not have your friend's problem at any rate. i live with my guy; we've been together for 18 years. i don't drink. (i hate football too.) i've never belonged to a singles club. i always enjoyed being single. now i enjoy being half of a couple. i don't think your friend's trouble stem from his ability to chat easily with strangers. one doesn't do that with the expectation of their becoming friends. one does that to be friendly (which is different) and to make the ride, or the gathering, or whatever, pleasant, and also because chatting with others can be, in and of itself, pleasant.

g

@genessa indubitably and particularly when a 4-hour commute is calling. I'm not sure that my friend, who I haven't seen for ten years but we talk about every 3 months, actually has a problem. He simply makes out that he has a problem.
Long ago I read that historically one third of the population never marry or have children. If still true a fascinating fact.

@FrayedBear i never had children because i didn't, and don't, want them. i never married because when i was young there appeared to be one framework for marriage, which seemed to me to be the equivalent of prostitution, and i wanted no part of it. my relationship with my guy is not like that. we may as well be married, but we're old and sick and poor, and marriage would actually result in our losing the meager benefits that keep us alive. we may get around to it if we survive, but it surely won't be for the purpose of having children.

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@genessa you make some laudatory points particularly about children, prostitution and elder abuse through discriminatory law.
I have just had a quick read of your profile and it makes the remark above of not talking to swastika-bearing people all the more intriguing. I think that I probably still favour the Pol Pot method of conversation with intellectuals when it comes to swastika wearing people. Thank you for your replies and good luck with the biography

@FrayedBear thank you kindly. i am rewriting a portion of it because alas that portion was begun before i owned a computer that actually had a hard drive. it operated on a system that, if it were a car, would be the equivalent of one with square wheels. it's gone. pffft, gone! meanwhile i've lived more than another third of my then-lifetime, so the is more bio to graph. i might never catch up! (i wonder if that would contribute to literal immortality or only literary immortality?)

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@genessa I remember the days of 5" and 3.5" floppies and a 40-megabyte hard drive was pure luxury! A friend recently told that Window latest version does not recognise the old drives. How true that is I don't know.

@genessa It all depends if current events are germane to the story and shed new light into your biography.

Because it lifts you up? Perhaps you should do it more often - make a friend a day.

Missing your security blankets?

@Gwendolyn2018 With that gorgeous hair and slim figure of yours you know that you cannot help but elicit attention from others. But why laughter, yours is not a face that invites others to laugh at it?

That sounds like it came from my own mouth. I think we're related somehow.

@Anne209 Sistahs from another mother.

No magic cookie!

Even Dorothy ... or did she start the habit?

@FrayedBear I don't know if Dorothy started it or not but you can go to Liberal and chat with the Dorothies, they have several.

@sewchick57 Liberal is a town in USA.

@FrayedBear Yes. Liberal is a small town in Kansas and it's where the Wizard of Oz museum is and they have at least 6 Dorothys every year.

The person who believes that "it is better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and prove it", is usually just in need of a good dose of self esteem. There is nothing wrong with them.

The dis- or advantage of a patriarchal elder's beard?

@Gwendolyn2018 it's your amazing long hair.

Proving the research?

There are many arseholes presenting themselves and their shopping at the checkout. Lol, there are also some "beauties" on the checkout as well!

? Isn't that supposed to be "a stranger is a friend that you haven't made yet"?

? Hello.

@FrayedBear I'm just saying leave strangers alone. Well. I leave strangers alone. I'm not good with new folk.

@weelittleone I find it fascinating however that almost everything I have encountered about you says "I'm me I want to be noticed." You are noticed and that is the first step to moving from stranger to "hey buddy, wanna drink and share your craic". If you don't mind me saying so, you are good at that and that is good enough for me and for you to converse and share more.

@FrayedBear that's nice of you to say. But I might note that this site is a bit artificial regarding meeting strangers. No one has to see what I look like, how my voice sounds, how short I am, that my clothes don't fit well... All that stuff. Over here, our standard is how well we respond over time with our typed out words. IRL I would never join or start the conversations going on here

I end up talking too much. But mostly because I am so nervous. I wish I could just shut up sometimes.

@Ubergooroo I actually enjoy the chats. And we would cover tons of different topics. Before I know it three hours have passed.

@graceylou & @Ubergooroo have you tried Toastmasters. They teach and allow you to practice honing the skills you already have to improve them to high levels of desirability.

@FrayedBear I’m not sure why I would need it since I don’t want to talk to people most of the time. As for public speaking, I’ve taught university classes and given lectures. In high school I competed in public speaking competitions....in French. I don’t have a problem talking to people; I just don’t want to.

@graceylou Sad that you have no desire. You have so much to offer.

@FrayedBear Well, I work with dogs and I talk to them a lot.

I tend to get frustrated with people being idiots. Or being too normal. I would rather not to be around them.

Does it truly do that or is it like the check out chicks insincere "have a nice day"?

@FrayedBear That doesnt fly when your income is tip based.

@dellik each struts the stage and plays his part. You admit to a false front. The customer accepts that as part of the social contract.
I have never had to work under such crappy conditions and thank you for opening my eyes to the possibilities. At one point I became local union delegate in a national campaign that saw wages in a so-called profession be shamed into coming out of the 1800's. Being a waged employee sometimes, however, has worse implications than being tip based as you are beholden to one person directly responsible for your income. When beholden to many you have the luxury of less damagingly telling the obnoxious to fuck off.

@FrayedBear I have done both through out my career. (served front of house, cooked and ran kitchens back of house.)
It honestly works the other way, (I know, counter intuitive)
If I am good enough at what I do, I can tell a manager (or even owner ) to fuck off and let me work, without any actual repercussions. But no matter how good I am, if I were to say the same to a single customer, as a server, I am going to be unemployed.

But The actual point I was trying to assert is that my 'false front' serves me well in normal social situations as well. as a chronicly antisocial person, if I wish to make people more comfortable/unaware of my own discomfort I can turn on that persona, leaving all but the closest to me unaware of my unease.

A dumb joke, and not an obvious one. I am trying to say that I am often more crude to the ones I love than strangers. Not a good habit I know.

You mean that you believe that it once was great?

@FrayedBear This countrynhas always had enormous potential, and it’s beautiful, and there are many caring concerned people. It’s also been run by white men happy with a white supremacy, patriarchal culture, whcih is inherently problematic. And the misplaced idea that it is a Christian country is a problem. So we are not without our issues here. But most countries have issues.

@UUNJ ? my question was partly rhetorical and slightly tongue in cheek.
It was good of you to reply, thank you.... Conversation with a stranger - and some say they don't get stranger than Frayed Bear's. ?