Making Conversation

For a while now, it has been an ongoing struggle for me to try to talk with the other teachers at school. It gets boring and lonely if the only person you can talk to is the English teacher. At TJHS, the teachers are all very nice and interesting people, so I really want to communicate with them. Unfortunately, I usually can't follow their conversations well enough to join in. So if I want to talk to anyone, I pretty much have no choice but to start a conversation myself so that I'm in control of the topic.

Most days I end up not attempting a conversation because I can't think of anything to talk about that isn't completely inane. I mean, if an adult came up to you and started a conversation with, "I like cats. Do you like cats?", you'd probably think they were fairly weird. And that sort of thing is pretty much all I've got. But every now and then there's something interesting I can tell people about, like a holiday in America, or a special event I'm involved with. Last week I forgot that it was Thanksgiving, so I missed an opportunity there. But this week I had another opening: Brett's birthday.

I had originally intended to tell the custodian about it, since he's the least intimidating person in the staff room. He's a friendly old guy, and he seems to be fond of me. But on Thursday he was actually fairly busy. However, S-sensei was at his desk for a while in the afternoon. S-sensei is the young math teacher who sits directly across from me. He's very diligent and cheerful, and rather handsome. I often want to talk to him, but I'm afraid that the other teachers will think I've got a crush on him. Well, I do, but it would be horribly embarrassing if everyone else knew. Still, since I actually had something relevant to talk about, I thought it would be less suspicious than if I just started talking to him about nothing.

I'd been watching for an opening for a while; S-sensei is usually pretty busy, and I didn't want to interrupt him while he was working on something. Eventually there was a break in the action, and I decided to go for it. The conversation went something like this, but in Japanese:

Andrea: S-sensei?
S-sensei: Yes?
A: How old are you?
S: Pardon? (either didn't understand or couldn't hear me)
A: How old are you?
S: I'm 26.
A: Today's my brother's birthday. He's 29. (gesture of despair at the fact that we are all aging)
S: (laughs, then asks something I don't quite catch)
A: (pause)
S: (frantic gesture of apology for asking something rude)
A: (finally figuring out what he asked) No, no, it's fine! I'm 25.
S: So I'm one year older than you.
A: When is your birthday?
S: September (I forget what day). When is your birthday?
A: June 25. I turned 25 last June.
S: Oh.

That's pretty much all we talked about, and then the conversation sort of tapered off. But it made my day. I was really proud that I had overcome my shyness and talked to someone when I wanted to. And it was also satisfying to hold a more or less normal conversation in Japanese. More than that, I was really happy that S-sensei didn't seem annoyed or bothered by me talking to him. He was very friendly, and if anything, seemed happy that I had addressed him. Maybe he was bored, too.

In any case, that's one step forward in making myself feel more like a human being when I'm at work. It's pretty easy to feel like furniture when no one talks to you all day, but people generally respond well if you reach out to them. So I'm working on approaching people on my own initiative and taking action when I feel lonely or isolated.