Social relations - the sad blog.

So what happens is that on some days, you get a whole lot of short-lived but interesting conversations going on. People invite you to their countries, ask you to throw caution to the wind and join them in Barbuda or wherever they're heading off too. And it's nice, in a controlled way, because you know you can't leave, the customers know it as well. Half the things people say to you is said simply because they're on their way someplace and have got those last minute balls that sprout five minutes before closing-time on your average Stockholm dance floor.

People say these things because they know that they are never coming back.
People say other things because they know where to come back.

I on the other hand, don't have much of a choice in the matter, which is both scary and both comforting. Because there I am, in a sea of motion and movement and planet trekking travellers. The one thing that remains the same. The sad thing is that I also have that one smile that remains the same. And this is the smile that people trade their hastily scribbled telephone numbers for. I get a couple of those a month, and it's nice and all - it's validation, after all, but it's also depressing because when you offer them your generic customer-oriented smile, it's not much different than the bills and slips of paper that are slipped through my slot. It's a product. If I was unhappy about being seen as a machine a while back, something I've unfortunately gotten used to and come to accept, it's even more disheartening to be seen as a product - something put on display. And these scraps of paper, the backs of receipts with numbers on them, as bids.

I don't call these numbers, and no, I'm not planning to.
What's even more of a downer is that after a while, you come to see all sorts of relations in terms of services provided and services exchanged. Freindships evolve into facts and figures, machinery I'm not sure I want to be a part of.

What is it about this grey zone between autumn and spring?