A couple months ago, I was working on my laptop in Café Artigiano when I realized that the four women next to me were discussing the Greek economy. In detail. Using numbers. And the actual names of Greek politicians.

I was massively impressed, of course, but also a little freaked out. Is this what other women talked about over coffee? My friends were all bright, well-educated women. But we’d never, ever talked about the Greek economy.

What did we talk about?

I could never quite pin down how our conversations were different from theirs. Until last night.

I was at a Stanley play with friends. Afterwards, on the street outside the theatre, we got chatting about on-line news and the decline of print journalism. (See? Serious topics.) We talked about the adjustments that freelancers had to make, and how some of those adjustments must be difficult for people who’ve worked in the industry for decades. Then this happened:

Friend 1: Everyone on Twitter was talking about an old-school journalist who went off about single moms being responsible for the death of newspapers.

Friend 2: That was probably me. I get all my news while I’m at the gym. The other day I heard about people getting stung by killer bees in China. So I went to my waxing appointment, and I asked the woman there, and she’d heard about it, too!

I laughed so hard I almost fell off the curb in Granville Street traffic.

And I thought so that’s the difference! My friends and I do talk about important stuff. And we also talk about waxing.