Thursday, April 23, 2009

Dinner Parties Getting More Boring



Mixed company is hard enough to bear as it stands. Religion and politics have long been off-limits - along with unwhispered *male humor*.

But now, one can't even talk about the economy or the stock market. Sure, everyone wanted to converse about (their) home prices on the way up....

However now, in the Greater Depression, it's a different story. Wage slaves and ovine, passive investors would very much like to remain in complete denial about what's going on. And this goes even for those economically literate enough to have a clue about reality. So don't you dare say anything at a dinner party like *well, I don't think the market is going to bounce back* or *job losses have really JUST BEGUN*.

Nobody wants to hear that sh*t....so just sit there quietly, stuff your face, pound that wine, and stick to approved topics like: that new restaurant in town, the weather, and kindred small talk. And be grateful you're *out* for a night!

My *dinner party* behavioral policy has come full circle, sort of.

I used to swing freely, offending everyone without even realizing it.

Then, for a couple of years I experimented with personal growth and went into total *make nice* mode.

But recently I've concluded that others' sensitivities are in fact THEIR OWN PROBLEMS - not mine. I'll walk on egg shells no longer - though my jabs these days are deliberate, targeted, and more refined than in the past.

In fact, I'm pretty darn good at what I do.

5 comments:

Funny Circus Bears said...

I don't know, I hang with some upper crust crusties and nobody ever looked askance at my doomish views, expressed sans schadenfreude

CaptiousNut said...

Well maybe you aren't *doomy* enough?

Do you mention canned food, diesel generators, and ammo shortages?

I tell people they are going to soon be eating low-end dog food and hiding from bands of starving criminals.

While the real upper crusties don't worry much about economic cycles.

I socialize with uppidity wage slaves, poseurs if you will.

Funny Circus Bears said...

Well that's it right there, my crowd are generally the ruling class and I am also known as a loose cannon, cowboy type so people expect me to shock, insult and raise hell.

One of my neighbor buddies is on the BOD of a regional bank and actually has a bomb shelter basement, fully stocked, armed, and sealed / ventilated. And yet he thought I WAS WACKO when I told him more than a year ago generally of the coming financial meltdown and specifically of the C&D defaults his institution was likely to absorb.

Anonymous said...

I constantly find myself in heated debates with people and notice how some bystanders get nervous because they mistake my passion for anger but I never take anything personal. My wife scolds me as well as she tends to think I take things to far but the rants tend to liven up the party and typically ends with me making light of my own arguement or behavior.
One example, I had a heated debate with a pregnant woman about her environmental beliefs and scolded her for being pregnant and bringing her global warming brood into this super heated world.
Let the beer and wine flow, and pass around the left handed cigarettes and debate the topics of our times. If you want dry and stuffy, stay home and turn on the news.
Kfell

CaptiousNut said...

Religion is off-limits.

So that means no *environmentalism* talk.

I don't want to hear their views on *climate* any more than they want to discuss the New Testament with me. Right?

We've actually been actively pruning friends. As Jack Welch said, get rid of the bottom 10% every year.