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Mar. 13th, 2023 09:31 pmThe thing about knitting in public is that it tacitly invites conversation.
Mostly, this is fine - I mostly get people who want to talk to me about their elderly relatives who used to knit when my interlocutor was young, or the time they tried to take up knitting but failed at it. Or I get fellow knitters (this is the best) who want to tell me about their own projects or discuss techniques.
But sometimes, it is inexplicable, like the gentleman at choir tonight who insisted on telling me the plot of Banshee of Inisherin because I guess there is a good sweater in it? And then wrapped up by saying, "It's set in Ireland of course. I used to live in Scotland, which is why I wanted to see it." Sir. Those two facts do not follow.
And occasionally someone decides to have a completely horrifying conversation with me*, apparently inspired by my knitting. The other knitting conversation I had at choir tonight was with a woman who started off by talking about the benefits of knitting for helping with anxiety and then transitioned into telling me about a relative of hers who had anxiety, and trichotillomania, and eventually had to drop out of her PhD program because she got pregnant and had terrible worrying PPD. It was harrowing - the story just kept getting worse and there was no way for me to leave because rehearsal was just about to start, so I just had to sit there with my eyes on my knitting occasionally murmuring, "Oh, that's awful," and desperately trying to psychically nudge my director into starting early. I don't even know this woman's name.
I think next rehearsal, I am going to bring a book.
*People also have horrible conversations with me at work, but that's because there is a certain type of person who will tell literally anything to the person at a library desk. Shout out to the woman whom I'd never seen before and have never seen again but who lives in my mind forever because she told me a long story about how she was sad because her dog had died recently "but he died mid-coitus, so I guess he was happy when he went."
Mostly, this is fine - I mostly get people who want to talk to me about their elderly relatives who used to knit when my interlocutor was young, or the time they tried to take up knitting but failed at it. Or I get fellow knitters (this is the best) who want to tell me about their own projects or discuss techniques.
But sometimes, it is inexplicable, like the gentleman at choir tonight who insisted on telling me the plot of Banshee of Inisherin because I guess there is a good sweater in it? And then wrapped up by saying, "It's set in Ireland of course. I used to live in Scotland, which is why I wanted to see it." Sir. Those two facts do not follow.
And occasionally someone decides to have a completely horrifying conversation with me*, apparently inspired by my knitting. The other knitting conversation I had at choir tonight was with a woman who started off by talking about the benefits of knitting for helping with anxiety and then transitioned into telling me about a relative of hers who had anxiety, and trichotillomania, and eventually had to drop out of her PhD program because she got pregnant and had terrible worrying PPD. It was harrowing - the story just kept getting worse and there was no way for me to leave because rehearsal was just about to start, so I just had to sit there with my eyes on my knitting occasionally murmuring, "Oh, that's awful," and desperately trying to psychically nudge my director into starting early. I don't even know this woman's name.
I think next rehearsal, I am going to bring a book.
*People also have horrible conversations with me at work, but that's because there is a certain type of person who will tell literally anything to the person at a library desk. Shout out to the woman whom I'd never seen before and have never seen again but who lives in my mind forever because she told me a long story about how she was sad because her dog had died recently "but he died mid-coitus, so I guess he was happy when he went."
