The Conversation Killers

Once I was late by 30 minutes picking her up, it was mostly downhill from there last afternoon. Driving through an unknown part of town, I had little clue on how to get back to Rt. 66W from her place. And for the next 40 minutes, I drove her through Northern Virginia into DC and back to VA - trying hard not to sound like a confused Robin Williams from the movie RV.

After gulping the chilled lemonade at TGIF (and yes, it was a Friday!), I realized that I was constantly repeating a cliched line of mine -

"So what else?"

SO WHAT ELSE?? Dude, what was I thinking? I had not even broken the ice properly and I kept on asking the same question repeatedly just to make up for my surprisingly bad road sense. And she kept on telling me -

"What 'what else'? Its not that I am telling you a story or something..."

Oh gosh! And this probably set the tone for what was to follow later. I learnt that bad conversations usually have two essential ingredients - baits and CKs. Baits are the starting sentences- small querries, stupid observations or just out of the blue words blurted out in the hope of kicking off a meaningful conversation. CKs or Conversation Killers, are either used to signify complete lack of interest or are inadvertent blurbs which throw the other person off.

Somehow, CKs were a favorite in our post lunch talk. I thought it would be pretty interesting to list my top 5 from yesterday just so that I am careful of not falling for them in the future:

1. "Yep!" - note the exclamation. This goes with a question or a statement and is doubly effective if you said it, drank a sip of water/coffee and looked away.

Me: "Hey, so California must have been a lot of fun during the internship, right?"
She: "Yep!"
Me: (Thinking..umm....ok? Do I get some details or what?...umm..Oh God, that was her answer?...damn, say something intelligent...fast!)

2. "Nope!" - it works on the same principal as the 'Yep' - however, one has to be careful using this since it has the power to create mighty confusion.

Me: "So, I think money is not all that important. I mean, people are my real strength. Don't you agree?"
She: "Nope!"
Me: (Thinking again...What? You crazy #$%@* - do you mean I have issues with what I believe in?)

3. The Smile - This one's the deadliest. You don't commit and leave the other person confused with 6 seconds of silence and a smile.

Me: "So do you usually do most of the listening or is it just me who is doing all the talking today?"
She: (Smiles)
Me: "Ok, I really do not understand sign language but I guess that's asking me to shut up"
She: (Smiles)
Me: (Tearing my hair apart - well, whatever is left of it :-))

4. "WTF": This one happened to me at 5:30 AM in the morning.

Me: How many boyfriends have you had?
She: WTF?

5. A Badly worded Question: Never, ever do it to a person you don't know very well.

Me: "So what do you think of most girls wanting to have a nice figure."
She: (Gives that weird look and probably thinking where this question was coming from) "I think its a personal choice - nothing wrong with that"

How it came off: A sexist guy like me is asking why women are always so obsessed with their looks?
What I really meant: Guys rank girls on the basis of their figure and looks which adds unnecessary pressure on them to diet. Do you have any thoughts on this?

6. The Loud Thinking - Always do the thinking in your mind and never with the tongue.

Me: (In a little disgusted tone) "How many boyfriends have you had until now, eh?"
She: "None"
Me: "It shows!!"

The last one was the Giant CK. I tried passing it off lightly but she wanted to be dropped home - right then. On the way back, she did ask what I meant by what I said last- I had no good answers for her. We decided to get together for a meal next weekend in another city. If after reading this she's up to it, I'd consider myself lucky. If not, oh well...atleast I came up with a new term - CK - and yes, it not related to fashion!