Etiquette

When we went to see a local fireworks show on Saturday night, I looked forward to some cozy romantic time with Sam (it was a reenactment of our first date, after all). We picked a nice spot, a good distance from the various children and their glowsticks, and snuggled under our blanket. Unfortunately, two minutes into the show, three couples basically sat on our heads as we laid there on the grass and then proceeded to discuss each other's lives in great detail through the whole show. A: I found it hard to focus on the wonder that is fireworks and B: I didn't really want to know that the Kennecott Copper Mine is boring, or that one of them is banned from IFA for stealing a pearl snap when she was 15, or that Alta is a cute name for the baby girl on the way. And yet I know all of this. Intimately. Like I was part of the conversation. Except I was a prisoner of their conversation, rather than a willing volunteer.

Am I alone in thinking that there is such a thing as a distance minimum when in public spaces? How can it not occur to people that sitting down right next to a stranger and then proceeding to spill your life story as if the stranger were your best friend may not be pleasant to the stranger? It is my rule never to sit closer than 6 or 7 feet to someone I don't know unless it is absolutely necessary, in which case I do not conduct conversations that others are forced to listen to! Perhaps I am too private but no, I definitely enjoy sharing my tender feelings with all of you. Difference! No one makes you read this! Unless somehow somewhere someone is using my blog as a form of torture in order to get secret information out of somebody. In which case, I apologize. Deeply. And I promise never to go off about Bronco Mendenhall and his "uptight, deep doctrinal ways." Because being forced to listen to THAT is just too much.