eavesdropping

The conversation I listened to was in a relatively enclosed space. It started with four people talking about a common acquaintance, we’ll call this person the subject of the conversation. They didn’t like said acquaintance and so the conversation began with one of them coming up to the others to complain/comment on a ridiculous situation they had been through with the subject of the conversation. The conversation started with “Oh my god, you wouldn’t believe” and then after she told a story, each other person agreed and gave an example of a previous (generally negative) experience they had had with the subject. Nobody asked any form of questions to keep the conversation going, instead, all the questions were generally for clarity. Each person in the conversation would listen to one story and then add another. In between and during each of these stories other people in the conversation would add in comments, even simple ones like “really” and “no way, man”, to show their interest and disbelief. The conversation changed subjects when one of the people brought up a t.v. character that reminded them of the subject. They then all tried to identify the t.v. show and talked about that for a while (this is where I stopped listening, it had been at least few minutes).

Overall, each person had a lot to say on the subject and they didn’t need constant questions to offer up their information. Generally the conversation was light hearted (they were complaining but not angry), and jokes would be added into stories or other people would comment quick jokes during each even that people were describing.