And now the Discovery Channel Presents Urban Kingdom:
The camera sweeps in to a room full of people…
Voice 1: “Notice here we have a group of what looks like friends and acquaintances talking…Lets see I’m getting a head count of three in this group nearest us.”
Voice 2: “Yes professor, in total however I think we have maybe 15 in this gathering room, they look as if they may be enjoying themselves.”
Voice 1: “You are right junior, this seems to be a social party of some sort. Oh goodness me! Did you see that? I think the youthful female in our little group of 3 here just caught the eye of that roaming female over yonder.”
Voice 2: “Yes sir! Did you notice how it caused the roaming female to immediately zone in on the group of three? I think she’s headed right for them and she looks pretty intense.”
Voice 1: “Indeed my boy, you can tell by the look on the youthful female’s face she’s sorry she got the attention of this ‘hungry’ roamer…In fact I believe I hear her making lame excuses to the other two about how she needs to leave the gathering.”
Voice 2: “I wonder why she’s not warning the other two. That roamer is closing in fast.”
Voice 1: “This is obviously a survival tactic. You see, if the other two can’t sense who’s coming the youthful female will use them as a bait of sorts, to…ah lets say, distract the roamer from trapping her before she can make her escape.”
Voice 2: “I don’t know, maybe I’m asking the obvious question professor, but what exactly is it about this roamer that so frightens the youthful female anyway?”
Voice 1: “You can’t tell? Ah well, as an experienced observer of human nature I can easily deduce from her mannerisms that this “roamer” as we are calling her is deceptively dangerous. You see, she preys on her own kind.”
Voice 2: “God no!”
Voice 1: “This is no joke. As we will observe, this roamer, once she has singled out one of the group she will engage them in a NEVER-ENDING conversation!”
Voice 2: “The Horror!”
Voice 1: “It’s true, this will be gruesome, in fact I’ve seen it drive perfectly normal looking people insane to the point that they’d pinch their own babies to tears just to have an excuse to walk away and attend to something different.”
Voice 2: “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to seeing this, but wait what’s happening now?”
Voice 1: “Oh ha ha, Yes, it looks like our youthful female has dodged a bullet, her survival tactic has worked, she’s sacrificed her friend to the roamer. By her surprised and dismayed expression you can tell her friend was completely broadsided by that move. It’s truly amazing, within seconds she’s been overwhelmed by the roamer and is already fully engaged in the roamer’s conversational trap. What power.”
Voice 2: “And there goes our youthful female, slinking away out of sight.”
Voice 1: “Nature, my dear boy, I’ll never get tired of what it can teach us.”
Camera fades….
Ah yes, we’ve all at one or more times in our life been involved in the above scene. You’re enjoying yourself until…you see her; she catches your eye from across the room and immediately turns and starts walking in your direction. Horrified you try to look away but it’s too late she’s homed in on you like an owl on a mouse and she’s diving in for the kill. Immediately you start to make lame excuses to the group about how you have to leave in the next few minutes setting yourself up for quick escape, because you know that once she get here one of you is going to get trapped into a NEVER-ENDING CONVERSATION! You’re fortunate enough to have seen her early, the poor souls you were talking with are no longer your friends but rather you will use them as distractions, throwing them in front of the oncoming beast like lambs for the slaughter. You sigh to yourself in relief as she attacks the person on your right, but you step back, hands up, with a look of; “Sorry but like I told you I’ve gotta go,” on your face. Your friend’s eyes widen in horror as she realizes she’s being abandoned. You make your exit, walking away towards freedom, saddened but grateful to the miserable martyr who may very well have saved your sanity.
If some people are like planets and some people are like stars, the type of person I’m discussing today is like a Black Hole. Well, a conversational Black Hole. You dread getting sucked in every time you get too close.
It’s scary when you see someone pull up then ‘drop anchor’ by you to “talk” you know it’s not going to be a quick chat. But that’s what she does (it could be he or she, but in my case it’s a she.) The one thing you can count on is she’ll never talk with you, it’s always at you and it’s always about some drama she’s involved in. What’s worse is she’s reproduced and her demon spawn is off running around pretty much destroying all that’s in his path while she chatters on obliviously…and endlessly. Eventually you start backing away, thinking that it send her the hint. She doesn’t get it, or else thinks that my hint is, “Please follow me to my car we’ll have more privacy there to continue our lovely one-sided conversation.” I think I could actually get in my car, start it and drive off and she’d barely notice. Alas, I am just not that rude. I hope I don’t have to have a baby to in order to have something to pinch and thereby an excuse to leave: “Oh the baby’s tired, I’ve got to be going.”