I am too nice...

... or "When crazy people talk to Bill randomly in a public place, volume 47."

So tonight I'm at the cafe, trying to do some thesis work, and finally making a little bit of legitimate progress. I'm in my "don't bother me, I'm working" mode: hat pulled down, glasses on, headphones on, intent stare on my monitor, papers spread out on the table where I'm working.

This kid walks up, asks if he can sit at the table. Since this is not the least bit uncommon, I happily oblige. Naturally, I do not engage. I continue as I was, staring at the monitor, trying to write. I make a momentary mistake and look up for a split second, and the kid starts talking to me.

So on and on he goes. How he's from Hawaii and on a road trip. How he's taking a semester off to pursue his photography and art. What a wonderful town Albuquerque is. How much he loves San Francisco. The wonders of being on hippie hill in Golden Gate park at 4:20 on 4/20. How the energies of the universe converged to have him discover a six pack of beer from the Kona Brewing Company in a fridge at a friend's house in New Mexico. How literature is fantastic because there's so much in this world to write about. How he may be young but the world is teaching him all sorts of wondrous things as he goes.

After imparting all the world's wisdom to me, he wants to show me his photography... on Facebook. It's cool, I figure I can at least get him to wrap it up and get back to work. It's now been some forty five minutes. So I look at his pictures. They're good enough, I can see he's got an eye for what's what. Then what happens? While he's signed into his facebook account, a chat window pops up. What does he do? He starts chatting with this person - "a fellow traveler." He continues this... for twenty to thirty minutes. I sit there, trying to be polite.

Then, as his conversation online winds down a bit, he begins to regale me with his tale of woe, how he was in Berkeley and lost his friends, how he wound up here but doesn't have the phone number of the guy he is crashing with, how is phone is almost dead. "Can I use your phone?"

Three phone calls later, he's gotten in touch with his friends and is back to chatting on my laptop. I at least got some outlining done in the meantime, since lord knows nothing else was going to get accomplished. In the end, I lost damn near an hour and a half of my life for being polite enough to give up a seat at a table.

Is there a sign around my neck that says "I listen to all your crazy shit and even occasionally feign interest?" Or do these people just have a heightened sense of someone who won't tell them to screw off?