Social Paradigms

I was sitting here, looking over some stuff, books and whatnot, as i clean up my room, and i remembered something that i wrote down earlier today as i was sitting outside of the cafeteria on campus. I was just finished eating a Tuna Sandwich, and i had an urge to write about stuff. This is a part of what i came up with:

I look around and see all these strangers and I feel like talking to them all. This is my curiousity. I'm not really afraid to do so either. It is more a matter of how such an attempt would come off. If I walk up to some guy and started talking, how will he take it. In this day, will he assume that I'm trying to sell him something, or have him joing some organization. What would I say to him anyway? That's another issue to consider. You can't start a conversation without something to say. I could just make idle chatter, but idle chatter annoys me. It feels so contrived and forced upon both the situation and the participants in the situation.

...and then, what if I went up to a person and that person were to be a female. I feel equally comfortable talking to them, if not more so. I find them to be fascinating. It could be because I am a guy, so I know about guys in general. My friends are mostly male as well, so I could learn whatever from them...social habits, psychological lines of thought, etc. Women are different. (Maybe not so in a qualitative or quantitative way though.) I am not one, so it is best to assume they are different and explore how. Not different in a bad or good way, not in a disadvantageous or advantageous way, but in a neutral sense. To assume that they are some altered form of man would be, in my opinion, erroneous and a biased way of taking in information.

So what then... I approach a female to begin a conversation, and what will she assume. My assumption, which has the potential to be flawed, is that she will assume I am "flirting" with her, in some low-toned courtship ritual, as when male birds fly up to female ones. Is that truly what she is thinking? I have no positive way of knowing. I am merely being guided by assumption. Even if that is not what she is thinking, it no longer matters. My conversation henceforth would be an intricate dance so as to downplay that belief that she believes I am "flirting" when rather I amm "socializing". (This may not always be consciously driven either, and many times I suspect it is not.)

What then? Do I discard the very idea of going out to a stranger and starting up a conversation of discussion. As stacked as the decks are, I should very well NOT. How else does learning take place. Better to play with a bad hand then not play at all...all that stuff. Besides, I most certain would not prefer talking with no one. Who then would validate even existing, if all I did was sit isolated. I might as well be dreaming.

-I have no idea how I came to this line of thinking, but now I should get to class where I will do more theorizing.

That is a part of what i wrote in my journal. If its not very coherent, it is because it was not planned out, and was written outside, on a slightly chilled day.

I have been accused of over-analyzing things, people, situations...

as of today, i can more clearly see the basis for that accusation.

That, and sometimes i write some odd stuff in my journals.

For the Boswanians¹⁵