Oh yes. Of course they do.

For no particular reason, yesterday morning I was thinking about talking to strangers, and how (it seemed to me) these conversations can be divided into roughly two camps.

On one hand, there is the bonding conversation, in which you focus on what you have in common. ("You like chocolate? ME TOO!") These chats may be shallow (of course they aren't always) but they serve a valuable purpose in establishing a warm fuzzy feeling towards each other, and allowing a potential friendship to develop.

On the other hand, there is the mind-broadening conversation, in which you explore how different you are. ("You don't like chocolate? How fascinating, I didn't know that was possible. Please, explain.") This can be a bit harder than the bonding conversation, because you need to exercise more imagination and empathy to keep things moving forward, rather than just shutting down with "I don't understand you At All." But it can also be more rewarding, as it gives you new ways to think about things.

What had not occurred to me, though, in my idle ponderings, was what happens when an apparent bonding conversation goes suddenly a bit off the rails. I suppose there's really no reason it can't, properly managed, become a successful mind-broadening conversation; but the dislocation is jarring. This happened last night, at a Christmas party. I was exchanging desultory small talk with a chap, and we touched on the perennial favourite of how hard it is to maintain your social life in London, because seeing people requires hours and hours of travel.

"I mean it was all right when I was younger," he said. "At around 20, 21, I could just walk over to most of my friends, because everybody lives in Kensington & Chelsea."

I just nodded.