Moving around over the past 20 years, I’ve noticed that different areas of the country have different favorite topics that all conversations eventually gravitate toward.
For example, growing up outside Pittsburgh, all conversations eventually turned to the fortunes of the various local sports teams. Be it the Steelers, the Pirates, the Penguins or the rivalry between Pitt and Penn State (which is ongoing, even though the two football teams haven’t played in nearly 20 years), people who live in or near Pittsburgh love their sports.
After college, I spent six years living in Nevada on the Northern shore of Lake Tahoe. Frequent conversational topics included environmental issues, wildfire preparedness and local politics, but sooner or later, everything came back to recreation. Mostly skiing (the ski resorts are major employers), but plenty of hiking, camping, and boating too.
The tendency toward a single conversational topic seems to be stronger in the DC area than any other part of the country. The sports talk turns to the politics of funding for stadiums. The talk about recreation turns to the politics of who’s in charge of what, and when you turn on the TV or radio, much of the news and entertainment revolves around (you guessed it) politics.
The only relief I’ve found is that when folks meet Terry or Wylie, the topic turns to pets. So hurray for the kids! They’re about all that’s saving my sanity!
2 thoughts on “Conversational Topography”
Comments are closed.
And then there’s the politics of whether you own the pets, or the pets own you.
Yes, but that’s more of a topic for rural areas where people and the pets have joint custody of each other as opposed to the more urban regions where pets tend to be more of an accessory. (I for one can no more imagine a teacup chihuahua running loose on a farm than a labrador retriever riding around in Paris Hilton’s purse. Though I do think the latter would be quite amusing.)