What’s with all the talking?

Coming from a country with a million people, I don’t see the sense in having to ‘talk’ to people just to be nice and polite. I mean, it takes a lot out of us Indians to keep coming up with something to talk about to our colleague, our hair-dresser, our cab driver, our server, our pizza delivery guy, or even someone on the elevator. I mean in India we never bother conversing, leave alone the ‘How are ya’s to every passer-by. With so many people around, imagine how exhausting it will be to greet every person you bump into on an over-crowded 7.20 am local from Borivli to Churchgate!

Things are ofcourse different in the United States, and probably at other places where it is considered impolite to stay silent in a situation where a conventional conversation could pursue.

A few months back I went in for a haircut. I preferred to avoid the small-talk and was quiet throughout. I’d rather have my hair-dresser concentrate on my haircut than on what to talk to me about. Towards the end she asks me (rather bluntly I would say): “Are you always so silent?” I was taken aback at the question, and answered with an “Almost always” instead of a more truthful “Only with strangers like you!” I never felt the need to strike a conversation with her, and yet thought I could leave her a handsome tip based on how satisfied I was with my haircut. But ofcourse, my right to remain silent did not apply here. The next time I went in for a haircut, I decided to go through the trouble of talking, just to feel more ‘normal’ and gel in with the rest of the crowd. I observed how everyone else was constantly conversing with their hairdressers. I wondered what they were talking about!

I was spared the effort to open the conversation by my hairdresser herself (thankfully a different one this time). She asked me what I did for a living. A perfectly harmless question, I thought. At the same time there was another voice in my head going: Why the hell do you wanna know that? Seriously lady, what business is it of yours? Just gimme the freakin haircut and I’ll be on my way. I’ll leave you a better tip if you just shut up! “I am a software engineer”, I went. “Oh!” she said “do you enjoy what you do?”. Whoa Whoa Whoa! Aren’t you getting a little personal here? I mean, to ask me if I enjoy my job! That’s clearly violating my personal space! “I don’t” I blurted, “but the money is good.” She gave me the godforsaken judgemental shocked wide-eyed alien look. “Oh, atleast you’re honest about it. I mean, the paycheck at the end of the month is important after all.” But I knew the damage was done. It was too late to salvage the sinking ship. “I do enjoy a lot of other things you know, just that my job is not one of them. I do blah and blah in my spare time, and then I take up blah and blah on the weekends…..” I went on glorifying the completely senseless tidbits I spend my time doing, making them look like exotic creative pursuits. I was constantly thinking what she was thinking about me – here’s a gal who can afford expensive haircuts from the paycheck of a job she hates!

I was trying too hard to impress her, I think. Shouldn’t it really have been the other way around? At the end of my 25 minute shampoo plus haircut, she knew my profession, the fact that I do not enjoy it, my age, my marital status, my nationality, the languages I can speak, my weekend activities, my hobbies, the restaurants I usually eat at, my favorite cuisine, and whether the guy she saw with me while I came in was my boyfriend or not. She already had my name and number, and she would have my credit card details when I paid her. Hey! Isn’t that enough information for an identity theft? This haircut was proving to be more expensive than I thought.

It was time to leave her a tip. So should the tip be proportional to her conversational skills or the number of times she told me the curls in my hair were beautiful? And what about the haircut itself? Should that be part of the equation? Well it was all too confusing and I was already tired, what with the exhausting conversation I had to make with this complete stranger. I left her a good tip and a thank-you-great-job regime.