2002-10-11 - 7:56 p.m.

Yes, Huzzah! To Nate and Lisa!

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Three Saturdays in a row I�ve gone to Smartbar. It�s the closest I�ve ever come to being a regular. I followed Mark and his friend Mohammed there � Mohammed, who fears nothing, who will go up to anybody and make brash comments, get himself out there like I never do. He gives me some excuse for standing at a table with some strangers, holding a drink nervously, flailing to strike up a conversation with someone. But I am an outgoing guy, a guy who has his own thing going on, though just what that thing might be I�m not sure. I have no thing. Nothing to say. I can ask questions and I can answer questions. That is the extent of my smalltalk. I cannot make connections, which is what one must do to make smalltalk.

I will probably not be able to relate to you. You will say something to me and I will say yes, that�s interesting, ask followup questions to show that I am listening, and when I realize that I should be making some point, revealing some insight about the world, I am at a loss.

When I have asked you if you are a regular here and where do you live and are you from Chicago originally and what do you do, and then nodded and said Oh, that�s interesting a few times, I am at a loss. I take another sip of my beer and stare off, thinking, What? What is it that people talk about at a bar? Do they talk about the things around them, the people and the music and the table and the beer? Do they comment on the people coming in and out of the photo booth in the corner? Do they talk about how drunk they are? Perhaps I am not drunk enough.

All I can think to make smalltalk about is smalltalk. I could ask this girl, who I�ve already interviewed about her current living situation and personal history, I could ask her, What are these small things that we are now expected to talk about? Why would one ever want to talk about small things? I never notice the small things. People will talk about the way people drive these days or about the way the cap goes onto some product, and I will think I don�t know, I never noticed. I am oblivious to these things. I do not care if the weatherman is always wrong (if this is what they talk about) because I do not care much about the weather. I do not to formulate opinions about things that do not really matter in the end. And in the end, there very little that really matters. So I form few opinions. I shrug and say Ehh� about most subjects, and shrugging and saying Ehh� makes for poor smalltalk.

When I�ve stood there stupidly for awhile, and concluded that, once again, I�ve run out of things to talk about for the time being, I excuse myself and leave the table. I go over to the other side, where the people are dancing and the beat is pumping, and I dance.

I am grateful for the refuge of the dance floor, for a place where I am not required to talk, to relate, where relating is just coming up with your own dance, and nobody cares what that is. I can almost lose myself on the dance floor, almost get the voices in my head to shut up. I listen for the beat and I start to move. I am happy for a while, or I tell myself that I am happy, moving my arms and my legs in random fashion, telling myself to feel the beat, telling myself that I am in touch with my primal self, that I am letting go. Only once I hear that voice telling me to let go, I know that I have not let go. I am not really happy, I am in the same mood I have been in all along. I think, perhaps I am not drunk enough.

When I have worn myself out a bit (for if I am not having an actual good time, then at least I am getting some good exercise) I go back over to the table. I look to see if Mohammed will be there to pat me on the back, or if some girl is staring off and waiting for me to talk to her. Perhaps I will start this whole smalltalk routine again. Or perhaps, when I have gone through this routine a sufficient number of times, I will tell myself that this is enough for tonight, you have suffered enough.

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