Small Talk

We had another dinner party last night. This time the table was set for ten, and I forgot to put out name plates so it was a jockeying for position and it did not end well.

The number ten threw everything off. You couldn't do male/female seating, and you can't bunch all of the males at one end or one side of the table. It was haphazard. Trust me, eight is the perfect number for a dinner party and for conversation flow.

But ten was what we had, and there was no help for it. So everyone just grabbed a spot. But my dinner partner monopolized the conversation at our corner of the table . . . I felt like Emma in the scene at the party where she just can't get rid of Mr. Elton and misses all of the good stuff from fellow party goers. That happened to me last night, and I couldn't send Mr. Elton off to get me a glass of punch! I tried turning ever so slightly to the person on my right . . . to no avail. Mind you, I enjoyed this person very much, I just wanted to share in what the others were talking about as well.

Small talk! This type of social discourse is a lost art . . . and I desperately needed someone to come to my rescue. So if any of you have any ideas that would work for extricating oneself from a conversation (without the other person knowing) please tell me!