conversation starters

from The Splendid Table, NPR 

https://www.splendidtable.org/story/lets-get-this-party-started-conversation-starters-for-your-holiday-party

Conversation Starters from Henry Alford

• What was the best thing you ate this year?
• What new friends did you make this year?
• What do you wish you were doing more of in your life?
• What was the most helpful invention of the past 100 years?
• What was the most destructive?
• What are the first three things you would do if you were President?
• Who would you cast in the starring role of a movie about your mother?
• Describe your own version of heaven.
• In a world with laser surgery, space travel, and aerosol cheese... why hasn't anyone invented a pill that makes you feel like you got a good night's sleep?
• How might the world be made better if, outside of crises, the entire country had a 24 hour-long global moratorium on talking?

Some additional conversation starters from The Splendid Table

• What do you like most about yourself?
• Did you ever get into trouble as a kid? 
• Did you/do you like school? 
• Who was your most memorable teacher?
• Tell the story of your first kiss.
• If you could do anything, now, what would you do? 
• What age were you when you really knew who you were?
• What was your first job? 
• Do you have any phobias? 
• What do you find the most attractive in the opposite sex?
• Do you like to flirt?

nostalgic

I'm feeling nostalgic for the time, a few years ago, when I was so "into" the ideal of hospitality--host and guest coming together authentically with recognized (or not) reciprocal roles and duties.

Now, after having read Susan' Cain's Quiet 

and reading the weekly newsletter from The Quiet Revolution,

 I'm rethinking how exhausting it is to be committed to hospitality.
Case in point...a periodic gathering of acquaintances for which I prepare something really special and receive praise for my culinary contributions.  And that's where it ends.  I never seem to have as good a time as everyone  else seems to be having. I can't appreciate the inside jokes. I fail dismally at small talk.  I feel awkwardness mount to anger and a genuine feeling of injustice.

I return home, vowing not to return but find myself going back.

I could catalogue the perceived snubs and feel mighty indignant. But then, I always come back to my observation that everyone else seems to be enjoying themselves--a lot!--and that, despite my strategies to keep my conversation light, not be sensitive to perceived slights, and listen attentively to others' stories, complaints, and jokes, nothing works.

Why do I care so much?  Well, all those studies say that I'm better off with a slew of friends.  And there's my sincere commitment to hospitality.  Plus, I can't shake the hope that I'll soon be accepted.

So is it genuineness or pride that keeps me returning?