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The title is an homage to my efforts in this thread from 8 ****ing years ago, because apparently I haven't learned a goddamn thing in the intervening time.
So I'm a TA again this semester, and all us astronomy TAs share a single office. There's a fellow TA with whom I share office hours every Friday. She's still a student, but in the same age range I am because she's working on her second degree. She's a TA for a different astronomy class, so we really only see each other when our office hours line up. (Although in previous semesters we've had classes together and run into each other.)
Anyway, when she comes in for her Friday office hours, I'm already there, and she's taken to striking up conversations with me because, I guess, she's a friendly person. I enjoy talking to her and it seems like we get along pretty well. This past Friday, she came into the office--which has several different tables and was completely unoccupied except for me--and sat down at my table and immediately started talking to me. We talked for a couple hours until I had to leave to go run a lab. I haven't had anyone show this much interest in me since my spectacularly ill-fated attempt at casual sex last spring, so all and all it was a pleasant time.
Now, it's entirely possible that her interest in me doesn't extend beyond wanting to make a friend roughly her age, but this seems as good an opportunity as any to try my hand at the whole being actively social thing. So how do I make this happen, Apolyton? What can I do beyond my entirely passive strategy of not acknowledging her in any other context unless she initiates contact and hoping that I'm an interesting enough conversationalist that she fights past her own frustration at my lack of initiative and forces me to interact with her rather than getting bored and deciding to talk to someone else? This is obviously an awful strategy, but it's a safe one that has worked more than once.
So I'm a TA again this semester, and all us astronomy TAs share a single office. There's a fellow TA with whom I share office hours every Friday. She's still a student, but in the same age range I am because she's working on her second degree. She's a TA for a different astronomy class, so we really only see each other when our office hours line up. (Although in previous semesters we've had classes together and run into each other.)
Anyway, when she comes in for her Friday office hours, I'm already there, and she's taken to striking up conversations with me because, I guess, she's a friendly person. I enjoy talking to her and it seems like we get along pretty well. This past Friday, she came into the office--which has several different tables and was completely unoccupied except for me--and sat down at my table and immediately started talking to me. We talked for a couple hours until I had to leave to go run a lab. I haven't had anyone show this much interest in me since my spectacularly ill-fated attempt at casual sex last spring, so all and all it was a pleasant time.
Now, it's entirely possible that her interest in me doesn't extend beyond wanting to make a friend roughly her age, but this seems as good an opportunity as any to try my hand at the whole being actively social thing. So how do I make this happen, Apolyton? What can I do beyond my entirely passive strategy of not acknowledging her in any other context unless she initiates contact and hoping that I'm an interesting enough conversationalist that she fights past her own frustration at my lack of initiative and forces me to interact with her rather than getting bored and deciding to talk to someone else? This is obviously an awful strategy, but it's a safe one that has worked more than once.
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