I consider myself to be quite antisocial. Not in a negative way, but given a choice, I don’t interact with strangers, and perhaps shun them, even.

I choose not to interact with strangers simply because I like my own peace and quiet, where I can lay my own threads of thoughts out in neat little lines and weave them into a nice pancho (to those of you who didn’t catch the Big Bang Theory reference, I pity you for missing out on an awesome show).

I’m also generally bad about small talk (who the hell talks about weather?), so all the more reasons to avoid talking to strangers.

Anyways, I shun strangers whenever possible. So how was it that I actually spent an hour talking about everything under the sun to a complete stranger?

It was a completely bizzare day for me. I had a fairly ok day at work and was sitting waiting for the public transport, and there was this 29-year old blonde lady sitting next to me, smelling nice and all dressed up, looking extremely attractive. And I was minding my own business (more along the lines of fiddling with my work notes), and she suddenly asked me if I had been waiting long. I hadn’t, and I gave her a short reply.

What entailed next was an hour long chat while waiting for the bus (thank you  ____ City Public Transport System). And she turned out to be a PhD candidate in my uni in philosophy. And so we talked about the philosophy of mathematics, physics, the mind, economics, rationality, wisdom of the crowds and the whole lot. Her arguments reminds me plenty of my PhD housemate, whom I frequenty engage in intellectual debates (you know, to get orgasms).

She turned out to be quite an Aristotlean lady, and it doesn’t quite go with my rather Platonic point of views (not to mention that she was totally against the idea of the economics definition of rationality), but hey, it was a good chat and I haven’t been as mentally stimulated since Uni ended. Best quote from her:

Yes, you can say the self doesn’t exist because of its dependence on various factors, but just like the bus, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You always need the balance between existence and lack thereof. [paraphrased]

And so the conversation went on, in the bus. And when the bus stopped, we happened to get off at the same stop. And we even headed the same way. Turns out she lives 5 streets away from me, and I had to walk past her house to get back home (thank you ____ City Public Transport System for fucking up and not dropping me in front of my house!).

As we parted, she invited me in for hot coffee (any of you played GTA III: San Andreas would know what immediately came to my mind), but I declined on the grounds that I had a party to go to (it was a real farewell party which I was fashionably late for, thanks again ____ City Public Transport System).

Ah, Silkrose, you’d have been proud of me

Oh well, so much for being anti-social eh.

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