The Anatomy of an Encounter

Small Talk and Other Contact Sports

Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.

—Ambrose Bierce

Above: Friends? Foes? Frenemies?

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Their eyes met from across the room the way headlights do on a dark road. The sheer brilliance of the unexpected collision was sudden, unavoidable, blinding.

One party muttered oh shit, sotto voce. The other let out a long, loud Heeeeeey, the vowel stretched thin enough to hear the insincerity in it.

The two men began walking their respective gangplanks. Far below them, small talk.

Reaching the end, each jumped…

And so the rigmarole began.

There was much handshaking, back-slapping, teeth-baring, eye-narrowing. The physical choreography of two people pretending to be much closer than they are.

Here a stumble, there a stutter, each perhaps indicating some minor betrayal of the body. But no matter. Eye contact had been made and the game was on.

They spoke with overly friendly language, too enthusiastic for the mundanity of the moment. Voices pitched a half-octave too high. Exclamation points in every sentence. Their conversation had the cadence of a greeting card and about as much depth.

The charade held them in its orbit now, the way the sun tethers the earth with its invisible, inescapable force. Small talk can trap even the biggest man. It has the inscrutability and gravitational pull of a black hole.

How have you been? Fine.

What’s new? Not much.

How’s work? Busy.

The answers were reflexive, pre-loaded, spring-released. Each response was a wall dressed up as a window. Their words came from somewhere south of thought and north of nothing. They didn’t know where they were, but it was certainly East of Eden and someplace closer to Hell.

The conversation was a sort of poker. They each held their cards close to the vest. Neither wanted to be the first to show. They were both holding 7-2 off-suit.

They inhabited the practiced, unsteady intimacy of acquaintanceship. Not close enough to be true friends. Not distant enough to be complete strangers. Stuck in some liminal purgatory of half-familiarity, where every exchange carried the weight of obligation and the lightness of total insignificance.

They had nothing to say, and they said it at length, with great enthusiasm and zero conviction.

Then came the parting, nicety-laden litany.

We should get together sometime.

Let’s hang out.

Would love to grab a drink or two.

The easy, quiet lies of polite conversation and unexpected encounter.

Each knowing full well that the seeds just then planted would neither take root nor bloom.

They shook hands one final time, as if sealing a deal that neither party intended to honor.

Then they turned and walked in opposite directions.

And the distance between them, which had briefly collapsed, resumed its natural, comfortable, preferred state: arm’s-length.

Two acquaintances returned to the wild.

Neither worse for the wear, but neither better for the meeting.

Just two people, briefly tethered by coincidence, loosed again by indifference.

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For more on friendship:

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Per my about page, White Noise is a work of experimentation. I view it as a sort of thinking aloud, a stress testing of my nascent ideas. Through it, I hope to sharpen my opinions against the whetstone of other people’s feedback, commentary, and input.

If you want to discuss any of the ideas or musings mentioned above or have any books, papers, or links that you think would be interesting to share in a future edition of White Noise, please reach out to me by replying to this email or following me on X.

With sincere gratitude,

Tom