> [...] not being able to comment any current affairs can make some conversations quite awkward
Not really.
I don't watch TV since 1998. I also don't read newspapers (exceptions are sometimes made for weekly magazines like Time, Economist, Spiegel or New Yorker and monthly magazines of all sorts) and don't listen to radio (for example, I always drive in silence -- it's not boring as many people tend to think). I also don't read general-purpose news web sites, like BBC.
Despite all that I have never felt awkward talking to anybody about current affairs. Someone expresses to you their dissatisfaction with some politician or excitement about some celebrity you never heard of (I was in this situation trillion times)? Ask them who is he or she and why they cause this dissatisfaction, which party they belong to, or whether they have previous history of screwing things up.
People will gladly explain this all to you if it really matters to them. Your desire to listen will remove all awkwardness.
Not really.
I don't watch TV since 1998. I also don't read newspapers (exceptions are sometimes made for weekly magazines like Time, Economist, Spiegel or New Yorker and monthly magazines of all sorts) and don't listen to radio (for example, I always drive in silence -- it's not boring as many people tend to think). I also don't read general-purpose news web sites, like BBC.
Despite all that I have never felt awkward talking to anybody about current affairs. Someone expresses to you their dissatisfaction with some politician or excitement about some celebrity you never heard of (I was in this situation trillion times)? Ask them who is he or she and why they cause this dissatisfaction, which party they belong to, or whether they have previous history of screwing things up.
People will gladly explain this all to you if it really matters to them. Your desire to listen will remove all awkwardness.