Small Talks

There are times in our lives when we are seated next to a stranger, especially when we are travelling alone in a plane. The chance is we don't really talk to him or her. Occasionally, we throw an 'excuse me' when we want to go to the lavatory or just even a smile without trying to engage in a conversation with him or her.

I personally prefer to sit on an aisle seat to minimize contact with those strangers really. I do not give a crap to who they are, what they do and stuffs. I travel with plane quite often and usually I make myself busy with things. Once during a long haul flight, I did not even make effort to say hi.

So, the concept of small talk to a stranger made into my mind on recent trip back home. I had my eyes on this girl (obviously out of my league. she is older and seemed to have married)
while I was checking in for flight bound fo Jakarta. She was good looking and had a pearly white skin. She also wore a dress ( for those who do not know, I am a sucker for girls in dresses ) with a knitted cardigan. I wonder if she had ever studied abroad because her style was so typical Indonesian overseas (I mean, who would wear a knit cardigan in a tropical country, really) and was just imagining how if I actually sit next to her. Most of the time my wild imagination do not really came through though.

As expected, she did not sit next to me. But, I was seated next to her mother. Yea, that sounds pathetic but at least I can dig some information to see if my guess proven true. And as I also expected, I chickened out, did not know how to start the conversation. She seemed not interested to talk anyway so that I spent my time reading the newspaper.

Not until I really need to ask about the time to her, the conversation started to went by. We ended up talking the rest of the flight. I asked her if Jakarta was her final destination and she said no. She was just transitting before she needed to catch a connecting flight to HongKong. She asked me in return where I was going. I told her I am going back to Australia to study. What really surprised me was the fact that she actually guess I studied in Monash and said to me that all her children was all Australian graduates and had remained in Australia for a considerably long time before decided to make it back to Indonesia. As a matter of fact, my guess was true. Her daughter had ever lived abroad.

Overall, it was a nice conversation and give me one more open perspective toward strangers.