Monday, March 29, 2010

Any Plans?

Second on the list of conversation starters in Ireland (second to the weather of course) is the "Weekend" The Weekend! the Weekend!! The weekend is a magical period of time, two days in which people do stuff. The Weekend, Saturday and Sunday .You make plans for it,telling people about these plans, you carry out these plans, you then tell people (who ask, or who don't)how this went in relation to the planning stage. Now I don't mind my friends telling me about stuff they do, weekend or otherwise, and, will also tell people about what I did (if I think they will find it even remotely interesting) But talking about it for sake of having something to talk about, just to fill some beautiful silence, is something I'm learning and have to get used to. So you have exaushterd the weather, (there giving snow for the weekend) there is silence, you don't know the people well enough to pull a topic out of the air at random (Best biscuit, opinion on peas, were you watching the wonders of the universe on bbc 2 last night) so it falls to "Do any thing exciting at the weekend" For me, this is always a resounding no. in my head. I know I did not do anything exciting, Whatever I did, I enjoyed it. I watched dvds, played computer games and went on the Internet. But it wasn't exciting for me. or you. BUT I must always always always always justify myself to the other person.I can't ever come out and say "Yeah so what? I'm boring" I have to set up some conditions. So I'm asked " go at anything exciting for the weekend?" I say no, but I also say, "not this weekend" Not this weekend! This implies I do exciting things some weekends and may do something exciting next weekend(I wont) and then we banter about how you have to put the feet up some weekends(all weekends) and it's grand to have a quiet one from time to time(all the time)Once the pleasantries of checking out my weekend are done and I have justified my existence to the other person, it is good social practice to say "What about yourself" . I only figured this out recently and it pains me to ask it. It hurts. I don't care about your weekend. Couldn't give a shite. blah blah blah blah blah. "Wow what an exciting life you lead" "the pub is it" "you'll probably have a few drinks there you will. In the pub. where you are going. at the weekend" of course this only applies to those placeholder/fill the silence with people I don't like conversation.

Once the previous weekend is done and dusted, once Tuesdays comes the "Any plans for the weekend" conversations can start

"Any plans for the weekend?"

"No not this weekend"

"Ah its good to have a quiet one from time to time"

"you need to put the feet up"