Seated at a dinner party, the woman on my right wasn’t particularly chatty. That didn’t bother me one bit because the guests across from me and on my left had social skills up the wazoo. We entertained each other with hilarious stories and madcap anecdotes. It was a conversationalist’s dream come true.
But after a plate of food and a few glasses of wine, the people pleaser in me pointed out that at the very least, I should make a few polite observations and general comments about the evening to the woman on my right. So I gestured to the table’s floral centerpiece and told her that the wildflowers in the vase were plucked from the mountainside. I knew this because I had seen them on my morning hike.
“How did you get to the top?” she asked.
I thought I was a comic genius in replying, “I walked.” But she pressed me with more questions like where did I walk and how long did it take.
That was when I realized that she knew nothing about hiking.
Careful not to insult her intelligence or come across as an overbearing know-it-all, I laid out the most rudimentary tenets for any beginning hiker: bring water and stay on trail. She hung on my every word as if I was the sole mountaineer of Everest. A part of me almost wanted to offer to be her guide!
My more gregarious dinner partners called away my attention and the evening fully progressed. As I was leaving, the woman approached me and thanked me for the information. “I'm going to do this. I’m going to the hike the mountain.” I was buzzed and encouraged her adventure.
Outside someone came up to me and said, “I saw you were talking with so-and-so,” referring to the budding hiker. It turned out that the woman with the long brown hair was a relatively famous yoga teacher (famous in the yoga community, that is). They wondered if she was giving me tips, imparting wisdom unto me.
“We just talked about nature,” I said.
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