I revel in conversation, most of it mano e mano but not from choice. Certain of my behavioural traits generate an antipathy that is most noticeable among wives (female partners, female co-mortgagees) of friends and acquaintances. Mrs B offers an explanation which I more or less go along with and I accept the failing as ineradicable. But how to widen the field?
Doctors are one answer. They’re articulate, they listen and at my age encounters are always just around the corner. I start the ball rolling with a carefully prepared and – most important – unexpected question. The links between vasectomies and prostate cancer forced one GP to admit he’d had a vasectomy and he wasn’t worried. Another GP explained why the labyrinthine diagnostic procedures in the TV series House are fraudulent.
The subjects must be technical (fine by me) and the talk limited (other patients waiting). But doctors are full of stuff that is of no interest to most patients and enjoy discharging it in short bursts. The House GP, above, got carried away and had to close an ever more recondite discussion of molecules with “But that’s telling you more than you need to know.” When I published a community magazine he allowed me to sit in on one of the practice’s bull sessions as the basis for an article.
It helps if you’re curious about things. The man who paved the area in front of our house with bricks was keen to talk about his wide-ranging skills. As are some car mechanics although here the initial question must be designed to appeal to their amour propre. I’m sorry about the wives but as they say up north, “I’m making do.”
Doctors are one answer. They’re articulate, they listen and at my age encounters are always just around the corner. I start the ball rolling with a carefully prepared and – most important – unexpected question. The links between vasectomies and prostate cancer forced one GP to admit he’d had a vasectomy and he wasn’t worried. Another GP explained why the labyrinthine diagnostic procedures in the TV series House are fraudulent.
The subjects must be technical (fine by me) and the talk limited (other patients waiting). But doctors are full of stuff that is of no interest to most patients and enjoy discharging it in short bursts. The House GP, above, got carried away and had to close an ever more recondite discussion of molecules with “But that’s telling you more than you need to know.” When I published a community magazine he allowed me to sit in on one of the practice’s bull sessions as the basis for an article.
It helps if you’re curious about things. The man who paved the area in front of our house with bricks was keen to talk about his wide-ranging skills. As are some car mechanics although here the initial question must be designed to appeal to their amour propre. I’m sorry about the wives but as they say up north, “I’m making do.”
