I get paid to be fake. To be someone I am not. I have a feeling that all these work dinners are going to get to me at some point. Sure I am getting free food and the Uni student hidden deep inside is rejoicing for yet another dollar saved for a pitcher of beer, but the little kid in me is dying a slow death caused by painful conversations with people I don't know. All conversation seems to start and end the same. Where do you work? What do you do? The inevitable take two directions. The first is you hit it off and have found something common to jabber about for hours whether it be music or the latest Trading Spaces episode when that designer did that thing that made the girl beat up the other girl. Basically you are two peas happy to share the same pod. If you are not this lucky you must beware the topic of weather in a conversation. If you have to resort to this you better leave. Run kicking and screaming of you have to because you have zero compatabilty with this person. You have just moved down to the lowest possible demoninator either of you can think of. It's not a could scene and only the best finaggler can get out of that mess. Good Luck.