The Comfy Corner

I have taken care and effort into developing an effective method of meeting new people and building new relationships. There is a level of social obedience and propriety we all must maintain if we want to attract and invite new friends into our lives (and keep them) and there are, I believe, some basic rules. My primary rule of thumb for first time interactions? Try to keep spontaneous conversation clicking as long as possible before resorting to hackneyed starters like, "So, do you have any siblings?" Since moving to the city, however, I've discovered that I'm meeting and interacting with so many different people in so many different situations that it is becoming difficult to maintain my rules. So many people, so little time! It's a conundrum! So, I've discovered the beauty of "single-serving friends" and they come with an entirely different set of rules.

Single-serving friends are the people that you meet once and then never come across ever again in your lifetime. They are the people you end up in conversations with at Starbucks. The tourists you wait on at your restaurant job. The people you sit next to on planes. The great thing about them is that there are really no rules! When I used to wait tables, (God, it feels good to have that in the past tense!) I would tell my tables that I was born in Hong Kong and went to an English speaking school till I was five. What do they know? I sometimes tell inquisitive tourists that I'm on Broadway starring in Wicked. And airplanes? Oh, please. The BEST place for single-serving friends. Where else can you unload your problems on total strangers and not feel guilty about falling asleep mid-conversation??

So yes, we should should always be kind to our single-serving friends. I suppose you never really know if that person in Starbucks will some day be "the one." Or if that man on the plane is randomly a Broadway producer. Or if that guy on the elevator is a serial killer. So stay comfy ya'll because we can all rest easy knowing that for at least one moment in our day, the pressure to "turn it on" is off. You can feel free to drop off mid-sentence and they wo