strange folk

first off, can i take a moment to comment on how much driving in the DC area stresses me out? i haven't done much driving in the last couple of years, and today was a brutal reminder of traffic and driving styles in the DC area. between a trip to the recycling center, the grocery store, and the local salvation army during rush hour today, i remembered why i hate driving during rush hour in the nation's capital, and have resolved to do everything humanly possible to drive as little as possible during the prime overload hours. i need a course in assertive driving, this is ridiculous.

now with that rant out of the way~ a question. do you find yourself in strange conversations with absolute random strangers? i.e. do perfectly random people come up to you and start telling you pint sized versions of life stories, "how my day was" stories, and my worst phobias stories?

you see, since returning back to the US and especially while in college, i felt like this kind of situation was occurring to me a bit more than...oh statistically probable, let's say. but i shrugged it off as a mere hallucination. until my parents started noticing.

last year i went christmas shopping with my mom. after managing to inadvertantly have rather lengthy conversations with several store clerk, we enetered the bathroom. upon exiting the stall, a middle aged woman commented that i must be shopping til i dropped. i remarked that my bank account had fatally dropped long before my legs had, and that i hadn't been shopping for a while. from this irrelevant beginning she launched into an explanation of how she was stressed about the wedding she was shopping for (her own), and how she had a terrible cold, and how she had canker sores, and did i know any remedies?

what do i look like, woman?

and this sort of thing is not a one time affair. i remember one long flight back from stanford, where i ended up seated next to a 50 year old optometrist who had never flown in his life and was terrified of his heights. i ended up holding his hand for both take off and landing, and coaxing him through a pack of gum and werther's.

which brings us to today's story. so the salvation army of alexandria virginia is impressively high speed. i thought i was going to have to park and find my way through a labyrinth of hallways to donate my old clothes and books.

not so. oh no, a veritable slew of neon signs directs you to the "drive through donation drop off." so i just tagged on to the tail end of 6 other vehicles waiting to drop off their domestics, i suppose. a man stopped to chat with each driver about their goods. so when my turn came, i rolled down my window, and resisting the urge to ask "can you supersize me, buddy?" i politely greeted him.

he proceeds to ask me where i am from, and then asks me if i like basketball. i cautiously reply that i do, and then he gives me a most enthusiastic grin and asks me if i want to accompany him to a wizard's basketball game this weekend. oh wait, the addendum question" do you have anything against recovering addicts, though? i'm in the program here and I still have six months left." what do you say to that? given who i am, i really couldn't say that i did, but still i wasn't quite sure what to do with this guy's request for "a friend." he asked me two or three times if i would call him if he gave me his number, and black bile on my inability to lie in these situations i said "sure."

which leaves me with two questions~ what makes someone decide to randomly initiate contact with a stranger? what kind of internal causative factors must go in within someone's head, and what kind of confirmation must the individual receive from the approaching stranger?

second, how does one go about deciding how much can be trusted from a requesting stranger? for instance, after all, i have a very weak spot for addictions to substances and anyone claiming to be victim to one. but i also have more than a marginal desire to avoid nightmarish situations. where does one figure out how to draw the line?

and on a completely related note, once more, guilt is the worst emotion there is.