The opinions expressed in Entre Nous are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Austin Bar Association membership or the Austin Bar Association board of directors.
My travels take me through a lot of airports, and being a friendly—okay,
“nosy”—guy, I almost always strike up a conversation with a fellow passenger after carefully considering whether they seem amenable to communication. I’ve developed rules for this, based upon miscues and past experiences. They include:
- Never interrupt the jerk holding an “earbud” business conversation at a sound volume calibrated for the main announcer at ACL Fest. The confidential information these idiots divulge about corporate matters to the entire first 15 rows of passengers is more entertaining than an Austin City Councilmember explaining why we don’t need parking in Austin anymore;
- Never bother a “snoozer”—they need their rest; and finally
- Never attempt to converse with someone modifying an Excel spreadsheet. They are rarely good conversationalists. You could get trapped talking about EBITDA, and no one wants that.
But I did have the strangest conversation recently with an interesting fellow traveler (Pete), who wanted to tell me about his stunning and confusing conversation with someone else on his intercity commute.
“Oooh…please, go on,” I said.