Como eres.....?

There is a passage in book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil that goes something like this...When you are in Augusta they ask what school you went to. When you are in Macon, they ask what church you belong to. When you are in Atlanta, they ask you where you work and when you are in Savannah, they ask what do you like to drink.

I thought about this in the context of questions people ask me and questions that I ask people. With the holidays in full effect I have had the opportunity to attend a quite a few parties recently and has, luck would have it a few of these were parties were ones where I only knew one or two other people. (Normally I am not a fan of large crowds of people whom I do not know, not that I am a recluse why do I always feel like I have to defend this? uggg I digress) but I had an experiment to carry out. I went up and talked to the people I did not know and just paid attention to the questions and reactions that we batted back and forth....

Like for example when asked what I do it will come up where I work and that I go to school..

Here is kind of an example..I paid attention mostly to the lead off question to a statement under the assumption that the lead off was the person really wanted to know..

Me: I am also a student
(Several options for another person to respond all have implication to what that person is like or concerned about here where the nights most common.)

Other: Where do you go? - I tended to dislike the elitist connotation of this question if it was the lead off question and tended to not like the asker, but ironically I found my self asking this as a lead off question too...I was the prick that I hated?

What do you study? - This is question I appreciated the most. And it often brought up health discussion on topics and I tended to be drawn to people who asked this.

How long do you have left? - People who asked this in the lead off spot looked at life as an ordeal to be dealt with. There was usually a water and oil thing that happened.

What I learned: Q and A sessions were pissing contests to see pecking order, dominance, compatibility. The whole process disturbed me a little bit, not only the reaction of others but also the shallowness and reaction of myself.

I did not speak a word all day Sunday