Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

The other day, at an event at my house, a woman whom I'd not met before as she was the friend of a friend, asked me about the paintings on my walls.  I was in the middle of a sentence when a mutual friend entered the room and the woman said, "Excuse me, I've not see so-and-so in ages", and she turned from me and began speaking to the mutual friend.  I quickly walked away, but was stung by the abruptness of the cutting off of my sentence.  It seems to me she might have included our mutual friend by saying, "I was just in the process of hearing about these paintings" or some such transition, and then I probably would have greeted my friend and encouraged them to "catch up".  After all, I was the hostess.  But the way it actually happened, I would have bet that this woman could find no one to talk to and was filling space by a question to which she really didn't want to hear the answer.  We've all been guilty of this party politeness.  She was relieved not to hear my answer to the question she really didn't care about, and I was left with a negative impression of this person.  I wish she'd not been so obviously anxious to not speak with me any longer, though she hadn't even given me a chance to be witty or dull.

Parties are danger zones for me.  I want to be genuine, and have interesting conversations, but others sometimes seem to be more than satisfied with the superficial and hop from person to person like rabbits.  I would have liked to have known how this person knew my friends, and a little about her.  But she had no curiousity about me.  That hurts when it shows.  Maybe I'm too thin skinned, or easily insulted.  My expectations of parties are quite low, though one where everyone knows everyone else is fun, and some parties have energies due to concentrated intention to raise the happiness quotient, as at a wedding.  This party made me happy, because the person I was hosting was pleased and the logistics went smoothly.  And I had many delightful conversations.  So I recall this one incident as a lesson and warning to me to strive not to be false or insensitive when meeting new people.  Because I sure wouldn't want to hurt someone unnecessarily, and guilty of closing a door when it might have been opened.