I got home today, and immediately texted my girlfriend who is out of the state visiting family. There was an interaction stuck in my throat from work, and I needed to get it out.
The last hour or so, I was working on administrative tasks with another sub in the coordinators office. When I arrive, we talk about the day, brief summaries of our classes, plans for tomorrow, then there is a lull. In this lull, and each moment like it during this hour, there is my focus is for this post. Around the lulls and moments of silence, there is conversation, or talking at least. I’ve forgotten most of what we, or rather they, talked about. I remember the items and bits that I was present and a part of the conversation for, however short and sporadic that was. I find myself unable to hold conversations, and this is going to be an active think of why.
I’m restricting myself a bit, because I noticed that when I was messaging my girlfriend my tone was a little harsh. It is not my intention to be hurtful or disrespectful to my co-workers, or to anyone else. I tend to have a disdain for things I don’t understand, which leads me to explore those things before I talk, write, or get too opinionated about them. I don’t really get small talk, and I wonder why people talk about the things they choose to talk about.
If you think about it, why do you talk about the things you talk about with your friends, co-workers, partner, or family? Please provide me some insight. I talk about what I do, for a lot of reasons, but they’re only reasons to me, for why I talk, I’m not sure why anyone listens. I write because it helps me feel better mentally to get my thoughts out, and it helps me feel like I contribute if I share them with someone, even better that I’m putting it out there for whoever to see it and read it. Hopefully I can help make other people feel better too, or at least think more about life and the world.
But I don’t talk nearly as much as I write. I don’t always articulate things the best way the first time I think/say/write them. Only when I’m writing I can fix it as I write, and when I’m speaking, I have to try to fix it afterwards, and that often doesn’t go well. Sometimes someone will say something clever to me in the hall, or even just say hello, and my response is a weird laugh or smile, or a weak greeting in return. I’m not confident, but I also don’t necessarily want to be, because it feels like a waste of my time and energy.
For me to talk, it has to be important, or relevant. If I talk, I’ve probably been thinking about it for anywhere from five seconds to several minutes before I decided to orate. This isn’t always, sometimes I’m reading directions from a plan, or I get sprung with small talk. Answering how I am several times a day, or other “normal” polite conversation. I’m not upset about it, but I don’t get it I guess.
Nearly anywhere I go, I can hear people talking, and sometimes it sounds unremarkable, and other times, I…I just don’t get it. People talking about hobbies, work, weather, that makes sense. People talking about a dress code from years ago, or some relative of a relative told them about some conspiracy about mason jars, or swearing every other word, I’m not sure what to think.
I try to weasel in when I can, but it’s hard to feel organic. It seems like everyone interrupts each other and there isn’t a good time for people to join in. I think it’s because they’re just talking about their own experiences and trying to get out as much as they can, not leaving time to pause and think, because they don’t have to think about what each other is saying. I also know this isn’t everyone, but it seems like people are heavy thought averse.
Perhaps that’s what a conversation is, some small simple words strung together to make us feel connected. This blog post isn’t a conversation because it’s entirely one-sided. I’m writing AT you. So when someone doesn’t feel like they have a good moment to join it, is it a conversation? I do manage to get into some conversations, but I have to think very carefully about how I can integrate what I’d like to talk about.
That opportunity is hard for me to capitalize on, and I’m not sure why, I think people just don’t relate to me. For instance, this afternoon, I found a great opportunity to mention that we seem to be a moderately failure-averse society, and that I was reading H. Jon Benjamin’s book, Failure Is An Option. Unfortunately, that was where that conversation ended. There was a period of silence, and then someone started telling a story. It was vaguely related, but didn’t really continue the theme of failure-averse..ness.
I’m not dominating in conversation, I don’t like to overpower people because when I get going about a topic I’m passionate about, or know a lot about, I tend to fixate on it, and it seems like people prefer more transient conversation. Also, lighter conversation. It seems to me that people don’t want to think about challenging things, or don’t know where to go from there. Perhaps their thoughts were, “I haven’t read that book, and don’t know who that is.” Now they didn’t ask, but I can’t say for sure that I would have either. I would have taken a stake if someone mentioned a social issue like failure-aversion, is that not relevant, important, and solvable? Would you not want to contribute to a conversation on the subject? Why not?
That’s what I don’t get. I don’t understand why people won’t talk about the challenging things. It’s not personally challenging (or perhaps it is), it isn’t so complicated that you have to do math or know facts and figures, and it’s valuable for human beings to discuss.
I’m not sure that this write has given me any sort of answers or closure… I can talk to people, I don’t often like to talk about small nothings, and I don’t really get why people talk about nonsensical things. I’m sure they like those things, perhaps they would rank those things as most important in their lives, perhaps the conversations they’ve heard throughout their life have been nonsensical and they’ve learned that that is how to converse with people. Or rather, since learning something shouldn’t be the problem, they haven’t learned how to critically think and how to converse about those challenging things.
Maybe they just don’t like thinking about it because it’s too sad. That’s a reason I could understand, but also exactly the reason we should be talking about it.
