Hostel Chats

I forgot how annoying it is that every conversation that starts when meeting another traveller always involves:
1 - Where are you from? If you have been to that place then - oh, that's a great place; if you haven't been there then - oh, I want to go there one day.
2 - A lengthy recounting of every place you've been to on your journey - always interrupted by the other if they've also been to that place.
3 - A listing of all tplaces that you've still got to go on your journey - once again, interrupted by a mention if they've been to that place or are also going to that place
4 - Description of profession
5 - Bitching about transportation
6 - Then, and only then, can the conversation drift onto something else ... Usually politics, which isn't so bad but I'm yet to meet someone in a hostel who isn't a rabit leftist ...