Over the past week I had the pleasure of skipping a week of school to go on my first family vacation in eight years. The beach was perfect, full of sunshine and quality family time. But what really made my vacation great was a conversation I had on the plane.
Now back tracking a little bit, I had the misfortune of missing my flight to Atlanta that would connect me straight to Indianapolis. And thanks to a mishap in the computer, I slept on the airport floor in Destin, Florida from 5:00am- 2:30pm. At one point I was so frustrated, I locked myself in the bathroom and had a mini melt down. Once I finally got a flight to Atlanta I was told I had to take the next flight to Detroit in order to get to Indianapolis. I was annoyed and entered my flight to Detroit in a bad mood ready to put my headphones in for two hours. Before I could pop my earbuds in, the man sitting next to me put his bag down and asked how I was doing today then plopped himself in the seat and kicked his shoes off.
Now, I haven't flown very much, but in my handful of flights nobody has ever started a conversation with me. Everyone's always too absorbed in their phones to pay attention to who they are sitting beside. And I'm completely guilty of that too, sometimes you don't feel like talking. Over the next two hours I learned so much about this complete stranger. He had been all over the world, been sky diving, broken his leg and had a titanium rod in it, the girl he loved moved to Switzerland and he had more than enough relationship advice for me. His cat was adopted in New York and his other was from Huston, he loved to take pictures and he also informed me that when he was a kid, people used to smoke on planes and children could see the pilots while in mid-flight. He drove on Highway One from San Diego to San francisco and causally climbed mountains in Wyoming. His brother lives in Detroit and he even pointed out his house while we landed.
They might seem like completely random facts that I could have gone the rest of my life without knowing. But it felt so good to get to know someone for once, face-to-face. True conversation. The only time people my age ever really meet new people is when they are drunk in a frat basement. Today's society is slowly losing the pleasure of casual conversation and replaced it with messages through iMessage, tinder, twitter, etc. My advice is to try putting your phone down for a second, look at the people around you and get to know them..even if its only for an hour. You'll be surprised what you can take away from simply saying hello. As for my new friend, thank you for that conversation, I hope you get the girl again.
