Old Soul

I was invited to this wedding not because I really knew the kallah, but more for neighborly feeling. There was more than one of the same number table, and I, of course, end up at the one where groups of two sit down and studiously ignore me.

Now I understand why everyone loves their smartphone. 

I looked about the room, carefully tearing apart the challah while praying for the waiters to show up already with the first course as shrieks of feminine laughter ostracize me further. 

I have never had an easy way with my contemporaries. Conversation rarely flows, and I end up getting looks that mean, "It's talking, but I don't know what it's saying."

I gaze longingly at the table of the previous generation, women in their 50s and 60s. Now there's my niche. They get me.

Out of boredom I decide to go to the bathroom and check my lipstick, which I know doesn't need retouching. On the way back I see one girl I know, who is also focusing closely on the fish. Despite her packed and chatting table, she is as isolated as I am.  

Thankful, I pulled up a chair and we begin to wax poetic about the styles in last month's Bazaar and the absurdities of wedding shtick. We continue to feverishly converse until the dancing begins. 

 

At my former table, two of the girls by my own table may be sitting together, firmly elbow to elbow, but their attention is focused strictly on their iPhones, not on their companions. 

As it turned out, I still don't need to get a Droid yet. I talked with a human being tonight.