Sipping Absynthe with Hemingway

I hate pretentious conversations. The title refers to one such conversation in the last ten years, where someone, slightly inebriated, went on a 20 minutes monologue, preaching the wonders of absynthe, "the highest concentration alcohol", and finally mentioning that he has never tried it, but how wonderful would it be if he had? Yes, Hemingway.

Bah, humbug, you say? You had to be there, stone cold sober, and annoyed as hell.

Logically, the allure of highest concentration of alcohol (which I wisely refrain from) has the same appeal of the "ideal concentration of ice on sprite" type conversations. They are meant to show off your knowledge (or lack thereof) about a problem particularly far away that in no way concerns you. And it evidently wastes the time of others around you.

Another friend's house two weekends ago. Conversation topic: traveling during Eid. I suggested Sri Lanka, as there are now directly cheap(ish) flights to Colombo. Enter a "boddha" (bengali word for intellectual), who helpfully declared that the beaches in a Croatian seaside city (that he forgot, I knew, but didn't volunteer, Dubrovnik) are supposed to be the best in the world. There was a bewildering stare among those in the room, and after a two second pause, someone said, "right", and we went back to our vacation plans.

In my adult life, one of the mantra I try to follow is to speak less, and let others say whatever is on their mind. Inevitably, when I run into blowhards, I try to remind myself of that mantra. Sometimes it works.

Most of the time, it drives me insane.