I had tea with someone I knew from my undergraduate days. We made small talk for over an hour, and it was a bewildering experience. Small talk is not necessarily a drag, but her heart wasn't in it, nor was mine. Anyone observing her for a few minutes would probably conclude that she was lively and engaging; but the cumulative effect was deadening, deadly. I kept hoping we would light on some interesting topic, but we never did. Later I found out on the internet that she's studying something that interests me intensely, but somehow this never came up. And so I can't help wondering, "Is she humoring me? Does she not consider me worthy of interesting conversation? (But how could a teacher be so stingy?!) Or is she simply not as interesting as I've always imagined?" (David: "The latter. Don't torment yourself." But I'd hate to come to that conclusion before excluding every other possibility.) She has a kind manner, and God knows that as an undergraduate one wants nothing more than for people to be gentle with one (college being like an insane asylum), but — I don't know. I've had tea with her other times over the years, and this happens every time, though I've never been as disappointed as the other day. It was like being a child, and feeling that you're not taken seriously; whatever you say people just think you're cute. "What do we say to one another? Why am I alive?" I wondered as I took my leave. But luckily the rest of the day went much better.

A few weeks before I had invited a colleague to lunch, point-blank. Her company biography seemed interesting ("classicist, bookbinder, pastry chef" — it was all I could do not to fall at her feet & beg, "Teach me everything you know!"), and I figured I wasn't going to meet her any other way. As it turned out, we talked nineteen to the dozen for three hours, about everything. I suppose that wonderful experience emboldened me, so that I felt ready to take on tea with X — and came away feeling as defeated as ever.