A rather eventful weekend:

Friday started with poker night, I didn't win anything, but everyone had fun.  Afterward we went to a bar, and one of the guys worked above the bar, and had keys, so we all went up onto the rooftop, drank, and looked out over the city.  It was pretty cool.  Then we went to a friend's house and watched a movie.  Went to bed at 5am.  Woke up at 7am, and went home and took a nap.

Saturday we went to Indy for a friend's birthday, we went shopping for a bit, I bought some new sunglasses.  We ate at a nice Chinese place, where the chefs grill at your table.  Afterward we went to a club, and this one girl that was with us turned into a major cock-tease.  After the club, we went to some friends' house, and I stayed up and talked with a different girl who was with us.  We went to bed at 5:30am.

Sunday morning we woke up at 7:30, after 2 hours of sleep.  I drove everyone back to Lafayette, where we changed and went canoeing.  Afterward, we went to eat at a drive-in hot dog place, then went swimming in the pool, watched a movie, and went to a bonfire.

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This weekend I had a good chance to get to know T.  T is my friend A's new girlfriend.  Usually when she calls, A leaves to go hang out with her, of if she comes with, they go off and do their own thing.  In any case, I've never had a chance to hang out with her or get to know her before this weekend.  I don't like her.  T is nice to the group, T is nice to my face.  But T is a bitch.

**There was an event which brought me to the conclusion the T is a bitch.  The following is not it, and the following did not happen to me.  It is my recreation of what happened after having talked to both A and J as it occurred.  (So before the event which caused me to believe that T was a bitch).  The following does not form the basis of my opinion, but rather, offers supporting evidence, and provides a background for the event with formed my opinion.  It is secondhand evidence, take it as such.**

When we went out to the club, T started dancing with J.  J was confused, backed off, and T said "Dance with me, I'm trying to make A jealous".  A is pretty social when we go out, and knows a lot of people at the club, while T has never been.  I think that T was getting jealous that A was so popular (even though A is totally devoted to T, and she had no reason to be jealous), and wanted to make A jealous by dancing with J.  Well, J wouldn't have that, and went and told A what had happened.  A confronted T about it, and T told A that J was just jealous of them, and was making it all up.  I think this is silly since J is in a relationship and has no reason at all to be jealous.

**The following did happen to me.  It is firsthand evidence, take it as such**

When we went to the club A and T went and did their own thing, like they usually do.  At 2am, T came to me and told me that A was upset and they wanted to leave.  We were staying at K's house a few blocks from the club, and had walked there, so I was confused as to why this was an issue.  They wanted to go home to Lafayette, and they wanted me to take them, since I had driven everyone to Indy from Lafayette.  I had also driven J and E.  Y had also met us there, and was coming back to Lafayette with us.  As I was having fun, and it was E's birthday, I wasn't about to gather them all up and call the night short unless it was an emergency.  I looked around and saw A leaning up against the wall, alone, looking frustrated, but otherwise okay.  This was not an emergency.  Also I had had a few drinks when we got to the club, and I never drink and drive.  I had not drank at the house before the club- where everyone else drank, and I had not had a drink in the last hour and a half, so legally I might have been okay, and I didn't feel intoxicated, but I still wasn't comfortable with the idea.  I like to feel 100% sober for at least an hour before I drive anywhere.  Especially if I'm going to be driving all the way back to Lafayette.  I told T that I was in no position to drive.  I hadn't seen her all night, and she had no idea how many drinks I'd had.  She bugged me some more, and then told me "Come on, I know you better than that", implying that even though I was drunk, I could still drive.  That ticked me off.  I wanted to tell her no, she didn't know me- she hasn't really bothered to, and if she did, she'd know that I don't drive drunk.  However, since at this point she was still a friend (because she was A's friend), I told her to ask me again in an hour (thinking the issue would have been resolved or forgotten by then).  She left, and I went and asked A what was going on, and after talking to her (which are the events mentioned above), I found and talked to J as well.

At 3am, we began walking to K's house.  I was walking with J, A and T were behind me, and Y was getting hit on, E and K were dragging her out, so they took up the rear.  A walked up to me and said "Hey, I know you're going to say no, but can T drive your car?" to which I responded "Hell no!".  A laughed at my enthusiastic response, said "okay", and went back to T.  As we were walking, J and I were talking about getting food, and when we turned back to see if anyone else wanted to go as well, we saw that A and T had fallen back considerably, and E, Y and K were with them.  We decided to get food ourselves.  At this point, I had felt 100% sober for at least an hour, so I was planning on driving, but when we got to K's house, it was locked, and K and the rest of the group were so far back that we couldn't even see them, so we decided to walk to the store, which was a few blocks away.  After picking up some chips at the store, I checked my phone for the time, and saw that I had received 2 voicemails while we were in the store.  T had left me two messages demanding I call A "Now!".  I one of the messages, she told me that if I didn't get back there now, she was going to steal my car.  At that point, I decided that T was a bitch.  She made a couple more shitty comments to me, one of which was one the way home when she scoffed and said "yeah right" after A thanked me for driving everyone.  Afterward, during the canoe trip and again during the bonfire (A and T didn't join us for lunch, swimming, or the movie), she and A did their own thing, and she acted friendly to everyone, like she usually does, but I still remembered how she was the night before, and I still hold my opinion.

  Well, I'm certainly no expert in the matter (so feel free to leave suggestions), I have a lot of trouble making idle conversation with people in a social setting.  I used to be very shy, until I got to know you, and then I'd open up a bit.  I'm getting better about it, and learning to make small talk has helped make that possible.  It became easier once I realized that the entire process is just a method of exchanging stories.
Essentially there are three phases: 1) ask questions 2) tell a story 3) repeat.

  The first part of small talk is to ask questions.  Drop the cheesy canned pickup lines.  You're looking for common ground, or rather, a topic to talk about.  For the first few minutes, I keep it light.  Initially, I like to start with a compliment, and a basic question.  Say she's wearing a necklace with a dolphin on it.  I might say something like: "Hey, that's a really cute necklace, where did you get it?"

  Now you've asked a question, and initiated small talk.  At this point, you're looking for a story.  To use my necklace example, here are some possible responses:
-"Thanks!  I found it at a store in California."  Excellent!  She's just given you a good topic for a potential story.  Ask her what she was doing in California, or tell her about the time that you were shopping in California.  The entire story may only be a minute long, but you've successfully found something to talk about!
-"Oh, I got it at Target".  A more common answer.  She's not really volunteering any information, so you'll have to keep asking questions to see if there's a story involved.  Look for more detail: "Oh, do you like dolphins?  We swam with some dolphins one time when we were in Florida."  Now you've introduced the topics of dolphins and Florida.  Hopefully she'll have a story about dolphins, or she'll ask you about your trip to Florida.

  Remember to ask questions that open up for topics.  You don't want short answers.
-"How was your weekend?"
  "Fine."
-"What brings you out tonight?"
  "I'm here with friends."
These usually aren't so good, but if you have reason to believe that there's a story behind them, you could try asking those same questions in a more open-ended fashion.
-"Did you do anything fun for Grand Prix weekend?"
  "Well, Saturday we went out and got really drunk..."
-"What are you all dressed up for tonight?"
  "It's my friend's birthday, we went out to dinner at this fancy restaurant..."

  An alternative method is to open with a story.  Remember that you need common ground before you tell a story.  If something happens that reminds you of a story, share it, but remember to focus on things that are currently relevant.  Unless she's wearing a BSOD shirt, if you walk up to her and start talking about your drive corruption and the hours you spent reformatting, she's going to excuse herself.  If you just saw a fight, or a sweet car, you could talk about that.  This method also work well in groups.  You can walk into a conversation, wait until you have something to add, and then jump in.  In this situation, the topic is already established for you.

  The final step: Repeat.  Your initial topic of conversation will probably only last a minute or two.  Switch topics, or start over altogether with a new question.  If you hit a dead end, ask another question.  Once you start to become more comfortable with one another, the conversation will flow more naturally.

Practice making small talk.  When you are out with your friends, try introducing yourself to their friends.  Once you are comfortable with that, try going on dates with people to get a better grasp of things.  Dates are a semi-captive audience, the other person doesn't wander off if the conversation reaches a dead end.  Move on to practicing in bars- people there are usually expecting to be approached.  Finally, make small talk with strangers in public.  If you can walk up to a stranger in a grocery store, and leave feeling like you've made a new friend, you've mastered the art of small talk.

One word of warning:  If you've tried talking to the person and are getting repeated one word answers, they're probably not interested.  I would say that two or three failed attempts at getting them to open up is plenty.  If you haven't got something started in the first minute, move on.