oh for goodness sakes.

I like talking to strangers. It's interesting, educational, and self improving to reach out to someone unfamiliar. Plus, you just never know when someone you randomly meet is going to be supercool and teach you supercool things, or at least show you the other door into Narnia. Just sayin'.

I also sometimes lie to strangers. I don't know, call it my training for an inevitable Oscar-winning lead role in a film--someday. Despite the moral ramifications, I think it's entertaining to take on traits and stories that may belong to someone else. I'm not talking straight on multiple personalities; there's always some truth. But sometimes I stretch and reach in order to move conversations along, get people talking, manipulate the situation.

Gracious, I sound like a jerk. Well, there it is.

The flip side of this practice brings me to be wary of strangers and their truthfulness as well. The best example of this took place recently, on my flight from LA to Seattle, on the last leg of my trip home from China.

I am seated and situated in my place, greasy, exhausted and starving. This gangly, gaunt guy with little glasses and strawberry blonde hair comes tearing down the aisle, and already I am praying that he is seated either in first class or in a lavatory. He's loud, hollering at everyone he passes by and laughing at himself. He's obnoxious. As fate would have it, he plops his bony butt right next to me and makes some useless remark in my general direction.

I retort and pretend to be enraptured by my National Geographic. (I kind of was anyway,--the blue holes in the Bahamas! They're crazy!)

His reply? "Girl, you got game."

Oh great. A wannabe hiphop punk. I inch lower in my seat and gear myself up for what I am sure will be the longest flight of my life. He introduces himself, and I of course, give him my bar name-Emily.

After this initial thirty seconds, I am wholly convinced that this man is under the influence of more than just poor taste in graphic tees. He seems straight up tweaking. He continues to hammer on, showing me all of his iphone apps, making me listen to songs he's mixed, telling me that he wrote Gears of War 2, he had a best-selling novel, and that he works with Kanye West. He writes comic books, too and his bff is apparently someone named Snakebite, who used to play the drums/bass/triangle or something for Korn. Apparently he was down in LA to do some voiceover work for Gears of War 3 and then make appearances at Comic-Con to sign autographs. Huh.

So, I figure I can say whatever I want because I genuinely think he's toasted out of his mind. After the Gears of War factoid, I ask him this:

"So, how does it feel to be responsible for the demise of so many adult relationships and the developmental stunting of so many American men?"

I opened the flood gates. He starts in on the media, the male psyche, crazy babble I couldn't even take seriously. All the while he interjects this fascinating self report with quotes from rap songs, incessant snapping fingers/shoulder tapping, and telling me that everything I have said is "so next level". What's worse, he laughs at everything I say and keeps trying to convince me to create some kind of t-shirt company, marketing all of my "sick" quips. Oh Lordy.

We cover everything from relationships, video games, traveling, the linear nature of time, inner satisfaction, LA vs Seattle, food, and parents.

He tells me a lot. I think it's all horse crap. The clincher was when this fair skinned, light eyed, red haired man-boy told me he was half Mexican. I mean, come ON.

So of course after exchanging pleasantries, him telling me to start a blog (haha!) and me telling him I'll look for his next novel, we part ways after baggage claim. He hollers to contact him, just in case, I ever want to venture into something he can help with. Sure, buddy. As I'm waiting for my ride at the curbside, I dig for my phone out of my purse and google this guy. .....because I'm a girl of the 21st century and that's what we do.

Well Hell's bells. According to Wikipedia and all of the comic-geek websites, he was no liar. It was all true. Well crap. Now if I ever want to really contact him for a publishing deal like he gave me permission to, I'll have to admit my name isn't Emily and that he didn't really ruin a relationship of mine with video games.

Lesson learned. Probably.

PS- His suggested name for my likely-published-if-I-start-it blog? Putthehelmetdown.com. He shrieked it on the plane while I was telling him that human interaction isn't real when stifled through a headset. I was telling the boys of the world to put the helmet down and talk to someone for real. He thought it was so.... next level, of course.