Well, here it is the 24th of March and the weather prediction is for 2 to 4 inches of snow tonight. Since I have no earth shattering topics on my mind at the moment, I guess I can fall back on the reliable topic of conversation — the weather.
People often start a conversation with strangers by talking about the weather — it’s sort of a “neutral” topic of conversation and its usually safe to use it to strike up a conversation, most anywhere and with most anyone. It’s maybe not wise to bring up politics or sports with some random guy standing in line at the Food Lion — you risk getting into some sort of petty squabble, but talking about the weather is almost always “safe.”
Talking about the weather is easy — true that it doesn’t offer any new insight into anything or in any way advance the cause of humanity, but I’m not sure it’s just so much hot air…
Talking about the weather is in all likelihood, boring — and some weather conversations are particularly annoying to me. I hate to get an e-mail, or phone call, in the middle of winter from someone living in a warmer climate saying, “It’s 90 degrees and sunny and I just went to the beach.” Everyone gets good weather and they get bad weather — just accept that and don’t try to make yours look better or rub it in…. I hate the question, “Is it cold enough for you?” I guess I’m supposed to think that is clever, but it’s annoying. Same thing if you change “cold” to “hot,” “wet,” “windy” or any other “weathery” term — annoying! Some people complain about the cold and then they complain about the heat — you can hate the heat or you can hate the cold, but come on, you can’t hate them both.
Then there are those people that always remember when it was worse, they usually say something like, “It’s not so bad, remember how much snow we had in 2011?” Somehow, I don’t mind that so much, it comes across as being positive.
Oscar Wilde said, “Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” Maybe so, maybe not, weather is a common ground, it affects everyone and starting a conversation with it often leads to more interesting topics. Of course around here, we often substitute the Redskins for the weather — “How ’bout them “Skins?” is a conversation starter.”
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