Familiar faces, worn out places

Since my home town is such a commuter city, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before I ran into a former classmate on the train and had the awkward conversation with an ex-acquaintance that I was dreading.

That conversation arose last week. JF was always fairly popular at school, if not for his natural charm, then b/c he was one of two twin sets in our year. In fact, I think at one point, I had a crush on him too. haha. But the conversation started well -- he worked at a financial institution about 4 blocks away from mine, his twin brother was also working at one. I suggested that we do lunch sometime. We talked about mutual acquaintances, the fact that we were done with school, the fact that we missed it, our future plans, etc etc. And then it happened.

Of course when you put two people working in the financial world together, when they run out of fun stuff to talk about, the conversation will inevitably drift off to finance. My goodness. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate talking financial stuff -- esp with kids my age. This isn't to say that I don't enjoy reading the WSJ. In fact, I start most of my days skimming the Cover Stories and Bloomberg News. But it's more because I went to school in a major and department filled with kids who were so eager to show off their financial prowess that they insisted in imparting their own opinions on financial theories. WTF. Seriously? If you were a 22 year old Greenspan, you'd probably be Greenspan, or at least a few million$ wealthier than a struggling analyst at some investment bank. I cannot tell you the number of networking functions that I've been to where undergraduate students, instead of listening to the advice of their elders, were too involved in trying to show off what theories they developed in hopes of getting a job at an elite i-bank. Maybe I just don't get it. Maybe you can explain it to me. But honestly, me, I'd rather listen to the theories of the professionals and develop my own theories when I've had a few years of work experience and maybe another grad degree behind me.

JF was actually a great conversationalist. He wasn't like these kids that I went to school with. And I appreciate that. However, I still think I'm going to skip lunch with him... not because I don't like him, or want to avoid conversations, but because I want to save the better conversation topics for in case there is another chance encounter on the NJ Transit