It's now 11.24am and I have been awake for almost four hours. I managed to get to sleep at about 11.30pm and had a restful nights sleep. For what seems like the first time in weeks. I thought, now would be an excellent time to give you the results of my 5 a day challenge.
The idea behind the challenge was to speak to 5 different people a day, people who I normally would not speak to on a regular basis. I excluded people like my housemates, whom I speak to everyday and my best friends that I speak to several times a day/week. I chose only to use phone, online chats and face to face interactions as part of the experiment.
I will admit, my motivation waned halfway through the week as I was spent a lot of time socially with my friends anyway, but I still kept on with it. I won't go through the details of all the people I spoke too, but will give you the highlights.
I had decided on the experiment on the way to my interview last Monday, I thought I just had to get the interview out of the way and I could get on with it. However, I managed to build up such a rapport with the interviewer, I felt that she had contributed to my 5 a day. When the interview was done, we probably spent an additional 10-20 minutes talking about movies and TV. So, I wasn't surprised, when a few hours later I was informed I got the job.
After the interview, I headed to Ali's work. I spoke to his manager Natalia and his colleague Artie, I already knew both and had spoken to them for short periods on a couple of occasions. Natalia more so than Artie, however I had not spoken to them for a while and I thought, what better excuse would I have.
One of the more enjoyable calls, was to an a guy called Doug. I have known Doug for about a year and I have to admit we didn't get off to the best start, we had a misunderstanding and although it was settled, I still felt a hint of frost between the two of us. Let's just say Doug is one of those people that is great to talk to on the phone, he told me about his interesting day, asked about mine, was enthusiastic about the challenge. It was fun.
I didn't just speak to people I knew. I also opted into speaking with complete strangers This was a little more challenging because I couldn't just go up to people on the street and start asking them random questions. When I am propping up a bar, I am the most social person you have ever met. One of the more interesting encounters with a stranger, was the guy who asked me for a light, so he could have a cigarette. When he took the lighter, I seized the opportunity to ask him how his day went, if he had answered with a simple fine. I would have let it go....but he didn't. 'Not good' he sighed, dropping the polite look of his face. 'How come' I gently pushed - He went on to tell me that he had just, a couple of hour previously, found his girlfriend, in the back of their car, having sex with someone else!
A special mention needs to go out to the 'Sandwich Artist' in Subway, who told me all about her lost passport. The drunk girl from 'The Millstone Pub' who loved my singing voice and loved the idea of the challenge. The super smart and equally beautiful Scott, who discussed politics with me before I managed to get him to listen to Bon Iver, in return I listened to some Boney M. Ryan, who listened to my housemate woe's and told me all about his move to London. Stephen, who shared my disappointment at Tilda Swinton, who did not get a nomination for We Need To Talk About Kevin. To Mark, who shared some really personal things with me. Josh, who told me about all the nothing he would do all day on his time off. To everyone I bugged with a slightly over enthusiastic 'How are you!'.
There are some people on the list, who I would definitely want to maintain a regular rapport with. I guess I managed to make some new acquaintances with people and maybe strengthened some of the friendships I have.
There was no part of this experiment that wasn't fun.
