Too Much Information??

People where I live tend to be outgoing to the extent that might be considered inappropriate in some areas. I don’t mean “have a nice day” or “how’re you doing” — I’m talking about the sales person at a downtown department store asking my opinion of her most recent date.  Or the checker in the grocery store taking an informal survey of customers who pass through his line, to get opinions on the best pizza in town and the customer in back of me asking my thoughts on a particular brand of pie filling and then reflecting on food preparation in the nineteen fifties. My son visiting from Seattle, went into a Starbuck’s yesterday and sat down while his order was being prepared.  The place was totally empty yet when another customer came in, the man chose to sit next to my son and initiate a conversation. I thought it was just my particular Northwest city but I also experienced it recently in far eastern Oregon, where the wait person at a restaurant told me all about growing up on a farm there and a man in an art gallery talked for ages about his favorite camping spots. I like the gregarious nature of people here though not everyone who spends time in this inter-mountain area enjoys it.  I had a visitor to this area tell me that once — just once — he’d like to go through the grocery store line without discussing his purchases.