You may find this hard to believe, since I'm such a witty gal, but I suck at small talk.  I, honest to God, can't find a thing to say when I am at a party of people I don't know well.  I perpetually screw up interviews because I can't think of anything "chatty" to say or questions to ask that show I'm interested.  It isn't that I'm not interested, but I'm a better listener than I am a conversationalist.  If I know a person, even moderately well, I can rally for a chat at a cocktail party and on a number of subjects, I can talk your ear off.  However, if I don't know you well, the onus is on you to get the conversation started.  With some exceptions...

 Like today at the gym for instance.  I'm on the stair climber, earphones in my ears, and eyes on a Law and Order rerun on my personal TV. I'm there to workout.  I don't want to be there, but the fat on my ass demands it.  I pay extra to workout at the gym with the fancy personal TVs so that I can distract myself for the 30-45 minutes I'm on the machine and get through the workout so I can go home and do something I like instead. Like drink wine and eat Doritos.  I am not here to listen to the guy next to me, who is ignoring my earphones like they aren't  swinging back and forth in front of his face with each step.  I try turning away from him and looking off into the distance to give him the subtle "I can't hear you" hint, but no go, he taps me on the shoulder. Fuck! 

For the next 10 minutes, and they were a very long 10 minutes, he proceeds to tell me everything about his life that I really don't want to know and the life of the woman who used my arrival on the stair climbers to escape (Bitch!).  This monologue, through most of which I just nodded and tried to listen through my earphones to what Sam Waterston was arguing in court about, got me thinking that there are a number of things I don't want to know about a person I've just met, particularly if I don't even know their name.  They are, in no particular order:

1. How much money you make.

2. How much money your spouse, children, brother, neighbor, or cousin-in-law makes.

3. How much money you lost in the markets this year.

4. How much you paid for your house.

5. How much you think your house is worth.

6. That the government, the gym, the gas station, the guy you buy your weed from, or whoever is totally ripping you off.

7. What kind of car you drive and how great a deal you got on it.

8. What size underwear you wear or where you buy them.

9. What you think of President Obama.

10. What you think of Sarah Palin.

11. Your views on abortion.

12. Your relationship with God, Jehovah, Jesus, Hare Krishna, or Tom Cruise.

13. What you ate for breakfast.

14. Where you went to college and how you're still paying off your student loans.

15. The life story of someone you know that I've never heard of.

16. Your medical history.

17. Your thoughts on the health care debate.

18. That you have an iPhone, and what applications you have downloaded.

19. What you do for a living.

20. That you sell Amway, water filters, air purifiers, acai berries, real estate, life insurance,  Girl Scout cookies, or magazines.

21. That you have a rash and aren't sure why.

22.  That you're working on a screenplay.

23. What you think about what I do or should do for a living.

24. That you think I would be a great mother.

25.  That you're on Twitter and I should totally follow you.

 Trust me, if I really wanted to know any of this about you, I would ask you - starting with "And, your name is?"