Where I grew up, the only time a stranger talked to you was when you were being mugged. And even then they were embarassed. Not about the mugging - since everyone in Connecticut was filthy rich, taking $500 from someone was a threat on the level of trimming their toenails - but they were shamed by the very idea of striking up a conversation with a complete unknown. The muggers would shamble up to you and mutter, "I'm, uh, I'm - well, y'see, I have to mug you," and we'd hand over our cash happily in complete silence. It was easier than talking back.

I'm not quite sure why this was. But nobody ever struck up a conversation with someone they didn't know, not even a casual "Say, how's the weather?" or "Do you know when the 8:00 train is arriving?" (NOTE TO YOU FOREIGNERS: In Connecticut at rush hour, the 8:00 train can arrive anywhere between 7:30 in the morning and midnight the next day, so this is not as stupid a question as it appears.) Put a hundred New Englanders together in a train station or a bank line, and we'll make the tete-a-tete that goes on in an closed elevator look like a book discussion group. The silence that hangs over us is so palpable you could give it a massage.

The only time anyone ever talked is when someone who didn't know any better came along. Southerners especially would talk to anyone about anything. "Wow, that sure is a shiny floor!" they'd say next to me at the supermarket, their voices erupting into the silence like a howitzer. "You don't see linoleum that polished anymore. I can practically see - my - face. These people here, they take prahd in their work, don't they? Hanh?" And then, when I responded only with a stare so icy it belonged in the frozen food section, they'd go on cheerily and talk to the lamppost outside, or maybe a passing dog, even the clouds if they were pressed for partners.

I envied their lack of conversational discrimination the same way I envied guys who slept with two to three different women a week; even though I had been taught it just wasn't proper, it was something I desperately longed to do - and I didn't know how.

And ever since I moved away from Connecticut, the great suburb of New York, I must admit it's been a handicap. It's difficult making friends when a) you never speak to people unless spoken to, and b) when people speak to you you lock up like a computer with a General Protection Fault. And so I have learned the art of making smalltalk, because in New England the concept of merely passing pleasantries was about as welcome as passing gas.

My first experiments were abject failures. I was too honest. Conversations would go like this:

"So how you doing?

"Eh. Tired."

"Why are you tired?"

"Well, I've been having these dreams lately about my Mom, and she's dead, and not only is she dead but she's in my kitchen and we're making love on the cabinets, and that bothers me."

I learned the first rule: People don't really want to know.

Next on the list was realizing that people don't want to hear the things you're passionate about. That's Big Talk. All of your vivid, close-held opinions about religion, politics, and who was the better singer for Van Halen... they all need to be mashed down into one gray, harmless pulp of vague agreement. Watch and see.

GOOD EXAMPLE:
Co-worker: "You know, I never liked Jews. But I loved fall. When I was a little boy of eight, I'd steal fencing wire from around the neighborhood and cordon off my back yard, and then I'd stand in the center, pretending that it was a brand, spanking-new concentration camp just waiting for the next train to arrive. Then I'd burn the leaves I just raked and pretend that they were Jews, the burning ashes drifting away from the incinerator I dreamed of having."

You: "Yeah, I've always liked fall myself."

BAD EXAMPLE:
Co-worker: "Say, does anyone have some mascara I can borrow? I left mine in my other purse."

You: "Maybe I could slaughter you a rabbit and you could pretend it was mascara, you cold-hearted, animal-testing, vain egotistical cum-gargling bitch."

You see? Things like this lead to awkward moments. Awkward moments are bad and must be avoided at all costs; they make people realize what isolated ships they are, drifting to and fro in a sea of nothingness, destined never to truly touch without smashing into each other and sinking to the bottom.

Speaking of bad metaphors, the third rule is to snip any interesting comparisons out of your conversations immediately. They are invariably offensive. Let me give an example of a recent conversation I had at work regarding the tendency of computer books to never come out when the manufacturers say they will:

Me: "Yeah, the release dates on my books keep changing. They slip more than an epileptic ice skater."

Vice-President Of My Company: "My daughter is an epileptic."

Me <thinking fast>: "Yeah, but does she ice skate?"

I was certainly on shaky ground there - not nearly as shaky as her daughter, I know, but I doubt she would have appreciated that metaphor either. The lesson to be learned here is that bad metaphors are as offensive as a turd in a banana peel and must be avoided at all costs.

Those seem to be the three rules. I consider myself lucky to have learned them, considering I come from a place where even the bums were terrified to talk to strangers - they just set up signs on the street that said, "NEED MONEY FOR FOOD", and sat in glum silence.

Oh. I almost forgot. The fourth rule of smalltalk is that it's almost impossible to get out of a conversation gracefully. You always have to pick some arbitrary stopping point and

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