There is nary a thing in this world that I find less enthusing than holiday lunches with co-workers. I’m cool with the free food, but the conversation is… tedious. I seriously struggle to find common ground with these people, but I don’t know how, because if there is one thing about common ground, it’s that it’s common. Not only did I get stuck right in the middle of the table when I was really aiming for a seat at the end, based on the advice that there would be less expectation for me to participate in the conversation there, but I got stuck in the middle of the conversation vacuum.

During lunch, there were three conversations taking place around me. The people at either end of the table were engaging in two different conversations, and the two women across from me were having one of their own. It was loud and the subjects were… sigh… I’m sorry, but I just don’t even understand why some things are deemed worthy of talking about.

The conversations focused on three different subjects: food, something I find that people with very little in common always end up talking about (common ground), pets (which people seem to have an inability to not talk about if they have any), and football (because I’m in Ohio).

I could actually feel my brain shriveling.

But the chicken was good.