On the delicate handling of suddenly fat chicks...

I try to be a sensitive fellow--well, in real life, at least. I would rather engage in meaningful dialog with people about our lives instead of barfing mindless platitudes at each other's feet. Unfortunately, the socially safe way of conversing trends toward mindless safe platitude. Here is an example of platitudinous conversation, complete with stage directions!

[I am working on a Mac, possibly typing up this very post, not unlike what I am doing now. A teacher with whom I am on a sort of first name basis but who I have not gone out drinking with comes in to sign in. I quickly minimize the screen because I am reporting in real time on the conversation.]

Bing: "Hey."
Them: "Hey."
Bing: "Whatsup?"
Them: "Oh, not much."
Bing: "Yeah, how's that?"
Them: "Oh, lots of stuff going on."
Bing: "I hear ya. It's been that way with me."
Them: "Yeah. Me too."

[A pause.]

Bing: "So whaddya know?"
Them: "Oh, not much. We're doing peer editing in class today, so I don't really have much to do."
Bing: "Yeah, isn't that great?"
Them: "It's nice."
Bing: "Yeah."

[A pause.]

Bing: "So, you got some work done last night, I guess?"
Them: "Oh, not really. I watched TV."
Bing: "Yeah?"
Them: "Yeah."

[A pause. It's starting to feel like a Bergman film.]

Bing: "So you teach two classes today, right?"

[We both know this because they had 2 classes last week.]

Them: "Yeah. One in 504 and then the other in 507."

[A silence.]

Bing: "Well, you have a good class."
Them: "Mhm. Thanks."

I have this conversation about 15 times a day. All phrases completely interchangeable with one another or with other completely meaningless affirmations of the obvious. You crave variety after about 10 minutes. So when an instructor pops in who is clearly suddenly at least 7 months pregnant, I would like to say, "So, how's your pregnancy going?" You know, taking an interest in the state of their life and their personal well-being and such. Making connections with people. Letting them know that I am a good guy, that I am alright. That I have not, in fact, been lobotomized.

And the instructor is so pregnant. She rests her hand on top of her belly and rubs it unconsciously (for good luck?). Totally a pregnancy thing, that belly-rub. But I can not bring myself to bring up the screamingly obvious on the off chance that she just gained weight, even though I know that is not what it is. Just the mere chance that I could be wrong and suggest that she has transformed overnight into a husky instructor...oh, and it violates the first rule of polite social dialog: don't mention someone's appearance until they mention it first. I don't give a crap if they are clearly a burn victim who has had a triple amputation. To say, "Hey, what happened?" is certainly off limits until they say, "When I fell into that vat of acid...." And even then, you need to pretend like you assumed that they had fallen into a vat of acid all along, and even that remarkable conversation has it's own prefabbed G.I. issue platitude ready to go!: "Well, falling into a vat of acid will do that to you."

Yikes!

HJ