I just got home from a party out at Alison's and it's got me thinking about a few things, namely involving "conversation" as the subject suggests. What I'm thinking about is how different aspects of yourself are viewed based on the other people's opinions on what is being discussed. I've tried running this through my head a few times and it's hard to come up with a clear way of explaining this, but I'll have a bash at it.

Tonight, after I got over being recognized by one of Alison's friends as "the girl who was talking really loudly on her mobile on the bus last Wednesday night", I found that a lot of people were commenting on my "intelligence".

In conversation tonight at the party (I only knew two other people; Alison, the host, and Rose, one of my mates that I went along with who knew Alison and one of the other guys) I found that there were a lot of topics that I could contribute to, and, being that we were at a party with a bunch of people I didn't know, I wanted to contribute because I didn't want to be the girl just sitting on the couch drinking Rum by herself all night.

I'm not saying that we had any serious political debates or argued over the price of eggs in China, but things like actors and medical jargon and certain movies ("Hostel" in particular) came up in conversation, and my contribute to the conversation was generally replied with comments like "That was a really intelligent, thought out answer" and "Fucking hell Chrissie you just know SO much random stuff", etc, etc.

But that just brings me to the point of: the "intelligence" of the people around you determines how much they think you are intelligent, if that makes sense... (my cat is standing in front of me as I type so I can no longer see...). I'm not saying that Aliuson's friends weren't intelligence, not at all! I just mean that if these same topics had been brought up (cat's gone now!) at, say, my house, in front of my group of friends, the outcomes and the replies to my contributes probably would have been a lot different.

So while I was, let's face it, a little bit pleased with myself that so many people seem to think I'm a bit cluey, I think it all came down to the company I was in. Does that sound like I'm calling them idiots? That's not my intention. But maybe because they aren't as familiar with these topics they don't have high opinions or knowledge or them, and thus my opinions counted for more than they would have in different company..

I don't know, though. What do you think? How does it work?