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We Need to Talk
Humans naturally communicate without a single word being spoken — body language, what they notice/pay attention to, and even how they eat. For example, if you saw me sloppily eat a bowl of pasta from across the room, you could understand that I’m somewhat tense and oftentimes scatter-minded. Conversation, however, requires tone, words, and careful deliberation of how to speak them, which has always been a foreign concept to me.
I’ve always been a more written word kind of girl, in which I have a greater amount of time to form a coherent thought and edit as much as was deemed necessary.
Even when I held prominent awareness of my incompetence to maintain a successful conversation, I still struggled to understand how others could begin with How are you? to speaking of their deepest wishes and dreams.
I often craved this connection but could never find the right words to get passed Good, thanks.
Deliberately searching was my first mistake; believing that being a good conversationalist merely requires being a good listener was my second.
In the midst of the oh, so daunting human-to-human conversation, my mind often drew a blank, in which I’d completely forget every experience I’ve ever had, any topic I’ve ever learned in-depth, and even my interests/disinterests; I lost my sense of self entirely.
