From the Outside Looking In

Posted by Cynical Sarah on April 24, 2006

I think we’re all guilty of a little eavesdropping now and then. Sitting in a restaurant, waiting for the bus, in the checkout line at the store – sometimes we’re all too bored to be stuck listening to our own thoughts so we check out what’s going on with everyone else.

My recent eavesdropping happened while watching my husband’s hockey game. The way the arena is set up, the best and warmest place for me to watch the game was from the sports bar on the second level. It was unusually busy and loud and even though I had a table to myself, nearby was a table full of guys who were slowly trickling in from their own game.

What caught my attention was that as soon as BallCap guy showed up, another person at the table who we’ll call Shorty spouted off some line from a movie and asked “Do you know what that’s from?”

Apparently this is a pretty common game for these guys because Shorty got all excited when BallCap guy didn’t get it right away. He kept shouting, “I stumped the stumper! I stumped the stumper!”

From that point on it was like listening to the world’s craziest game show concerning old TV shows and random lines from movies. I heard comments and questions on everything from “I Dream of Jeanie” to “Miami Vice” and many, many random actors from those shows.

Who remembers that kind of thing? I can’t even tell you the real names of actors in most of the shows I currently watch, much less the things I used to watch in the early 80s. Sometimes I can’t even remember their character names and they become things like “that geeky guy with the funny forehead and glasses in that office show who was also in that Sahara movie.”

Before I could get too amused by the thoughts I was having while listening to this group of obsolete TV trivia lovers, I realized that I’ve been out with groups before that must have been equally amusing for people looking in from the outside.

During high school a lot of my friends were into comic books and certain video games. Every time we were out doing our usual movie and then hanging out at Perkins for hours, inevitably, they would end up talking about the difference in qualities between DC and Marvel comics. There were often lengthy discussions about which superheroes could beat each other in a fight and so on and so forth.

If it wasn’t the comics it was some sort of game or another. It truly was the “geek” discussion at its basic level.

I’ve even been out with a group and had conversations filled with useless movie trivia similar to that of the obsolete TV trivia lovers. There’s also those nights out with the girls where all we talk about is guys and the dating scene. Or those boring nights where all you can talk about is the weather and the food – as sad as that is.

Now I know exactly what other people must be thinking when they overhear those kinds of conversations because I was thinking just then. “Wow. People can make a whole conversation out of this kind of crap.”

From the outside looking in it all seems like a conversation filled with crazy, irrelevant crap. But to those in that conversation, it’s a connection.

There’s only so much “catching up” we can do with our friends, especially those we hang out with regularly. So we find our common ground and topics we can always rely on, even if it’s something as cheesy as hating Gargamel because he had found the Smurf village on several occasions but could never remember how to get to it again in future episodes. That way we have something to talk about instead of a table full of awkwardness and searching the room for a television.

Plus it gives us eavesdroppers something to talk about with our friends later for a good laugh. It makes the social world go round at all levels.

- Sarah L. Polson

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