This is gonna be the thread where we talk about stuff

I like little reminders that everybody's different and has a different background and worldview to me - and sure, it's easier to get to know people if you can string along an initial conversation (E: about a common interest like a video game or a sports team or a musical artist). That kind of thing's super-important to me though because I worry about myself growing to see people around me as scenery to my own life story. Interchangeable snap-fit assembly hobbies or histories. That's not the kind of philosophy I want people around me to take, so I do what I can mentally to cultivate the opposite.

This is pretty much what I was going to say, but more eloquently put.

I dislike making small talk, and I'm hardly an outgoing person, but I personally think there are a lot of other compelling reasons to talk to people besides shared interests. I'm lucky enough to go to a huge university with a good variety of people, and I find talking with people with different backgrounds or interests from myself interesting in itself. Especially since I had virtually none of that growing up.

Plus, being thrown in a dorm with complete strangers my first year sort of forced me to meet people I wouldn't have sought out otherwise. Classes and extracurricular stuff have had a similar effect. The flipside of this, of course, is that a lot of the people I meet are "friends of convienience" to some extent - I probably won't hang out with them after I stop seeing them regularly.

Is this somehow a less valid or more shallow kind of friendship? I don't know. I've thought about this a lot. I share a lot of interests with my few close friends, but that doesn't preclude me from having less meaningful (but still enjoyable) interactions with acquaintances.

Like Schazer, I see myself somewhere between an introvert and extrovert. I dunno. I feel like that dichotomy isn't very helpful in any case.