Talking to new people is so fascinating. I’m pretty active on messenger applications and really try hard to stay in touch with friends and everything, but sometimes you can get a new contact on your phone – either via a group you’re in, or maybe even an event you’re participating in or helping out with. You’ll even receive personal messages from this unknown number – a “come help out”, or “Hey! Can I send you my attendance exemptions form?”, and naturally, you’re likely to answer only the question you’re asked – and not much more.
But what if you don’t know someone and they send you a message to make sure their friend is hanging with the right kind of crowd from far away, just out of care. And that sparks off conversation which continues on the daily, through periods where you’re each busy and replies are delayed, but somehow, conversation goes on, links are shared – and you learn more about them.
And then you finally get to speak to them – and conversation goes on the way it always has. But all those chats and layers of context finally attach themselves to a voice.
What I find fascinating is that this is how the human brain works – it attaches identity and layers of context to a voice (that you learn how to recognize), and also to an appearance. It attaches emotion to people and memory to conversation.
If all of this isn’t the human experience, I’m not sure what is.
Tejas Rao 