The Real World.

Today, I attended a tea party in honor of Rebecca Farthing who had just turned one. And because it was a children's party, there were an astounding number of children there, ranging from 1 - 5 years old. To my surprise, I had a pleasantly refreshing afternoon. During the course of the afternoon, I made some new friends, broaden my scope of the world by exchanging ideas with the adults, and indulged in some kiddy-chatter with some of the children.

Most of the kids were meeting each other for the very first time, and yet they took to one another like a sailor to whiskey. Without much urging, all it took was just one child sauntering up to the other, "I've got a balloon" and within minutes they were like best friends, and together with 6 other kids in tow, they tore up the place with laughter, taking turns to yank the strings of the balloons.

I am constantly amazed at how simple it is to make friends at that young age. Watching these children at play leads me to re-examine our own set of social skills. Whilst I may not be inept at making new friends, I find that a large portion of the local society here lacks a certain finesse when interacting with people in general.

Take this for instance: Have you ever uttered a "Hi" or at least flashed a smile to the other person who got into the elevator with you? What kind of reaction would you be likely to receive? I've tried it before, and all I got was a suspicious look from the other person. She was about the same age as I, perhaps she thought that I was about to rob her. Have we as a society ,become so paranoid or so dull that we could not (or would not?) even reciprocate to a friendly smile?

Where did our social graces disappear to? Ah yes,I know. They're hiding in cyberspace; where we spend extraordinary amounts of time conversing behind the keyboards - we chat on MSN or through the forums, we poke each other on Facebook, or we even have lenghty conversations through the convenience of SMSes, but most of us are designated failures when it comes to pure unadulterated human interaction. Is it because we are so comfortable putting a smiley at the end of our text messages and emails, that we forget to actually smile in real life. Given in a brisk growing society like ours, we are more abrupt, less compassionate, and inadvertently becoming hollow one-dimensional characters.

So I'm guessing that I should make the first move, "I've got a balloon... " :)