The Diary Room

[a_person]

Definitely weird.

[a_person]

This is a bit macabre, but is there a way to find out if someone is deceased without joining one of these sites that charge?
My elderly sister in law always makes my sister and I birthday and Christmas cards. She has the same birthday as my sister n April and neither of us have had a card from her.

She lives on her own in Cornwall, and I expect if she had passed, her children wouldn't bother to let us know

If you give me the full name, I can check it for you sometimes next week.

[raj101]

talk? london? sure you werent hallucinating....

in surbiton the other day someone started talking to me at the bus stop (and she wasnt even old..older people are often more chatty than the younger generations). That was rare rare, even out in the suburbs!

I wonder if its a relatively recent thing, all this incommunicado. The way you see elders chatting lots (not on the tube, but around the suburbs) makes you think that london was probably a much more communicative population back in their youth, and if so its a sad thing that the capital has lost that.

[June]

I think there is a noticeable decline in communication in most cities, slightly less in the more rural areas, however for some reason people in the North of the country still appear to be quite chatty and comfortable with breaking in to friendly conversation with people they have never met before.

[ejwrank]

Something extraordinary happened to me on the Northern Line today: someone SPOKE to me. I apologised to a woman about my dripping umbrella and she started chatting about the weather and England, and where am I from and how long have I lived here? Whereabouts in Germany and she used to live there for a few years and she is Italian and then she started speaking German in a heavy accent! It spooked me out at the same time as it cheered me up - unfortunately I only had one stop to go.

Unfortunately or fortunately?

Oh dear I'm feeling a bit worried. I am always talking to people on the bus and quite often they blurt out their entire life story to me. Now I'm thinking that everyone must think I am a total nutter.

[Beate]

No you're not. You sound like a good listener.

[raj101]

you must have a very friendly face.

[June]

Something extraordinary happened to me on the Northern Line today: someone SPOKE to me. I apologised to a woman about my dripping umbrella and she started chatting about the weather and England, and where am I from and how long have I lived here? Whereabouts in Germany and she used to live there for a few years and she is Italian and then she started speaking German in a heavy accent! It spooked me out at the same time as it cheered me up - unfortunately I only had one stop to go.

Unfortunately or fortunately?

Oh dear I'm feeling a bit worried. I am always talking to people on the bus and quite often they blurt out their entire life story to me. Now I'm thinking that everyone must think I am a total nutter.

I think that lots of people don't talk because they are worried about looking crazy, why is this? Are people so obsessed with what other people will think of them that they will no longer talk to one another? I think that is so very sad, I would rather people thought that I was crazy (which most of them do) than to stop myself from socialising and being friendly and approachable.

[a_person]

@raj101, She has a very friendly face indeed. She's a wonderful lady!

@ ejwrank, actually you come across as someone sane. I speak to people on the bus when they speak to me. You can tell the difference between a nutcase and a genuine person. You are the latter. So don't stop talking!

[TheyCallMeMrGlass]

Any packed city you go to in the world it will be the same. Its a stark contrast when I am on a weekend break in the country though. You wake up in the morning and go out for a walk, nearly every one that passes by would greet me with a " 'morning".

But even on London trains, it hasnt been uncommon with me to be involved with conversations with strangers, initiated either by myself or the stranger. It can be sparked by what you are wearing that may relate to the other. Such as a running event T shirt that we have run in. I have been spoken to on trains a few times when I wear a loud T Shirt or heading off to a cricket match in my whites (sometimes I dont get changed at the dressing rooms, I already wear them). A conversation can even be sparked by simply asking if this train stops at Tucumcari