Last week during the install-a-door-and-discover-that-your-whole-house-is-rotten project, the kid doing gofer work took advantage of his boss’s momentary absence to wander into the kitchen, where I was on the computer, and talk to me.
Now I’ve exchanged maybe five sentences with this kid in the past, all completely casual. But with virtually no preamble, he informs me that he’s had a bad month because on his birthday he came home to discover his girlfriend and his roommate doing guess what on the living room sofa. He commences to go into detail.
I make a few politely sympathetic noises while trying to indicate that I’m doing something really, really — I mean really, vitally! — important on my computer. I eventually have to say outright that I’m deadlining.
I’m embarrassed that any young man would think that a stranger either would want to hear the intimate details of his relationships or should hear them.
Where are the boundaries? Are there boundaries any more?
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