Circa 1996, I was having a conversation with my dear old friend, Val, in which I said totally matter of factly, "I fear silence." And I do, dear reader. I cannot tolerate a lull in conversation. What is certainly a workaday banality for most of all the other people in the world is, to me, as though someone is pounding a nail into my head with a violent hammer of awkward silence.
And so, over the course of 40ish years, I've mastered the art of conversation. You understand, of course, that by "mastered", I mean "capable of filling the briefest conversational lull with desperate, panicked chit chat."
I am far more exhausted by this than exhausting.
I think.
Tonight I had a work dinner with some folks I don't know who work for the company that acquired us and I had hoped to be professionally impressive. I wore lipstick, for Christ's sake! I put product into my hair! As I walked in to the restaurant, I noticed that everyone was sitting around the table in unbearable silence, which was probably only because they stopped the conversation as I walked in to greet me and had been chatting comfortably up until then. But I couldn't risk it! I had to start GABBING AT EVERYONE!!!
Chat chat "and how did you end up in this town?" chat chat "how old are your kids?" chat chat "what a dreadful commute" chat chat chatterly chat chat chat chattity chat chat chat fucking chat.
I have no idea if the folks I work with are glad to have me around because I'll bear more than my fair share of the conversational load or if they are thinking "dear god, would she just shut the everloving fuck up?!"
Maybe both?
If I weren't so terrified of awkward silence, then I could sit there and take the temperature of the dinner table. But then it would be quiet and everyone would be looking around and, dear god, why don't we all just put a goddamn bullet in our heads! SOMEONE HAS TO TALK NOW!!!
I'm so tired.
Did I talk too much tonight?
By the way, I'm great in text. Why can't we all just text?
