Almost immediately after I sat down at the bar at the Hollywood Diner for lunch today, the elderly woman next to me struck up a conversation. She told me she was in Manhattan from her home in Jersey visiting her brother. We made small talk for a few minutes, noted the weather (naturally), and then the conversation turned to politics. She told me her thoughts on the 2008 presidential candidates, among other things, and so on and so on.
The topics of our conversation is not what interested me though. As we talked I considered a long-time observation of mine that elderly people tend to be more apt to conversation with strangers than their younger counterparts. And I am no better than my peers: once she initiated conversation with me I gave her my full attention, but if she had not spoken first we would have sat the entire duration of our meals in silence.
My question is, what is the primary reason why elderly people are more inclined towards casual conversation with strangers than younger folks?
As individuals age do they become more sociable or is it a generational thing? Has the woman I chatted with today always been so conversational? If so, then perhaps the change is a generational one-- as my generation ages, we may not necessarily become more sociable and a critical element of societal interaction may become largely lost.
Perhaps this generational shift also has something to do with changes in the very ways people interact with each other now? Email and AIM and MySpace and Facebook and World of Warcraft and blogs and Wikipedia and forums and message boards-- all these are avenues for 'social' interaction and the sharing of information, ideas, and even emotions. But, as we become ever more immersed in such things do we begin to lose our desire or even our ability to interact politely and pleasantly with complete strangers?
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1 comment:
A couple thoughts here.
Regarding the generational aspect of conversation/communication, casual observation has led me to believe that our generation is by and large ill equipped to communicate in such a way that we can sustain meaningful discourse for more than a few minutes. Too many distractions. Too much media to absorb. Too many voices. The deafening static of a billion operators transmitting on a single signal with no modulation.
Regarding elderly people and the inclination to converse, this could owe to an innate desire to impart wisdom on a younger person who stands to benefit from this perspective (whether he/she recognizes it or not). Sociological altruism. Where you and I lack worldly experience, elderly people have a lot to offer in this regard. If we listen.
More clinically, this could be a survival mechanism: the bigger our social networks are, the better chance that we'll be cared for when we're weak and frail (and elderly people are obviously keenly attuned to this dynamic). Conversations with people can yield relationships. And the more relationships we maintain, the better the odds that we don't die alone.
Or maybe she was flirting with you. Hell I dunno.
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