Social Hypocrisy

By May Rostom:

"Hey how are you, how's everything going?"Then a stupid smile on their faces is what I get when someone that I haven’t seen in quite a while says when I run into them! Sub consciously I reply with "I'm fine" and just repeat what they said all over again , give them the "get the hell out of here" smile and start walking ! I won't say I don’t do it because we all do, it's like no one has time for even small talk anymore.

All this is fine by me but what really gets to me is the "give me your number, we should hang out sometime" phrase.

It usually starts by the other person saving your number on their cell like its some sort of directory and never actually calls you to hang out (and you're not that keen on hanging out with them either , admit it!) but what's really funny is the next time they see you they'd be like "how come you didn’t call me?" .

Is this miscommunication or mass communication? Is this phrase a new way to stay in touch with the largest group of people you've come across in your lifetime or do they really want to catch up? I can't seem to remember the last time I ran into someone I haven’t seen for a while and got a useful piece of information like I'm married or I just got fired today! It's like no one is interested in what you've been up to but still asks you to make you feel important and no one has the time to summarize how things are going in 5 minutes.

When did the regular hi and wave run out of style? At least it's more convenient for the both of you, where you don’t want to hear what they have to say and they know that but say it anyways.

I remember the younger me being able to talk to anyone about anything for any amount of hours and never get bored but now life's hectic and stressful and when someone asks you what's been up you automatically reply fine even if things aren’t going your way.

What if someone did reply "not fine", how would one reply to that? And do you really want to listen to this person complain about it for the next 15 minutes while you just stand there helpless?

As we grow older, do we lose the interest to talk or do we lose the interest to small talk?

Making friends is a hard thing to do and maintaining friendships is even harder, but how can we balance both without being hypocrites??

Very simple, when you see an old friend tell them how much you've missed them and mean it, ask them what they’ve been doing recently and seem interested and if you take their phone number CALL THEM .

So next time you try to pull a stunt like that again, remember I BLEW YOUR COVER!