I once told a woman the BBC-series Walking with Dinosaurs is the best nature-doc ever made and probably my favourite series of all time.
And she said “Oh man, I used to really love that series when I was a kid! I should watch it again.”
I was absolutely ecstatic because I’ve never once in my life encountered another human who loves Walking with Dinosaurs.
So I told her: “I have the full DVD-set at home. You should come watch.”
So she comes by, we eat pizza, I put on Walking with Dinosaurs Episode 1: New Blood, you know how it goes.
Kenneth Branagh takes us on an incredible journey through the post-apocalyptic Triassic era – and she starts talking.
She starts talking over the TV, utterly ignoring the drama and beauty on the screen. She asks me questions about my life and my hobbies and she talks about her own, and by the way, she’s been getting pretty close to me on the couch as well, now that I look at it.
I make some futile attempts to redirect the topic of conversation towards dinosaurs, cannibalism, and paleontology, but eventually it dawns on me:
This girl is not interested in dinosaurs at all. She is interested in me.
Obviously I can’t accept such disrespect towards Walking with Dinosaurs, so I do the old “I’ve got things to do” and make her go home. Then I watch the remainder of the series, because it’s amazing.