ponies, arthur and ice cream

i dont know if you have a lot of friends, acquaintances, or people you would like to meet. regardless of where you stand, i know that a lot of people struggle with conversation topics within their first meeting with someone. i believe that there is one way to guarantee immediate friendship with anyone you choose to meet. yes you will meet someone, first you will hear their name, then possibly grade, school, where they are from. oh great ya, you are a business major too? so am i... i dont know about you but this is the most thrilling conversation i have ever heard. actually, no that was a lie. after you get the basics you are guaranteed awkwardness. however, i promise there is hope for these awkward little turtles. this strategy requires two parts. first you need some major prep. you need to examine deep inside yourself and determine what are your three favorite things? the following things don't count: family, friends, or girls/boys, or jesus, generally these things are implied. once this list is compiled, complete you ought to flesh it out with details as to why your three favorite things are giraffes, egg rolls, and water aerobics. now you are ready, once you have gone through the basics and they are expecting you to walk away because you have nothing else to say, you have to whip it out, "what are your three favorite things?" they will likely freak out and say i don't know. then you can pull the well i'm really into giraffes, egg rolls, and water aerobics card and they will have no choice but to think about it themselves. honestly though, i feel that most people subconsciously rank everything, at least they should because it makes prioritizing tasks way easier. for example, if you are aware of your love for egg rolls you will probably not have a hard time justifying eating at your favorite chinese restaurant when your alternative is spending the evening in the library studying for your biology midterm. you might fail, but at least you got to eat your second favorite thing. anyways, so you ask them, and then they get really awkward, maybe even more awkward than they were when you were just talking about hometowns and majors, but after some persistence they will start talking a mile a minute and reveal to you that as, perhaps as the captain of the lacrosse team, they are wild about my little pony, pbs' arthur, and strawberry ice cream. who knows if you have any opinion or conversation about these three things, but at least the next time you see them out you are welcome to approach them for a long talk about who their favorite colorful plastic toy pony is, because after all, you are awkward enough to remember that they are into those kinds of things.