Short Thought 185 (revealing)

Without any particular probing on my part, the first time we talked he revealed a lot of personal things about himself, more than you’d normally expect, the sort of things you’d tell if you were building trust and confidence with a new acquaintance. Yet he didn’t seem interested in talking again.

When that happens I think either a) the person is rather forthcoming with lots of people (so there’s nothing special about it) or b) they feel they have over shared and need to back away. In any case what I know for sure is I let it go, I don’t pursue it. It wasn’t always that way but I learned.

Group talk

Sometimes if I’m in a group and someone else makes a statement or asks a question, the responder will direct their answer to me, as in looking right at my face and not at the initiator. It happens regularly. Maybe it’s because I am an attentive listener or appear interested – I’m not sure exactly. It can mess me up occasionally, if I wasn’t really paying all that much attention to the previous remarks.  Now I’ve got to look lively.

Once I’m being directly addressed, it seems polite to maintain eye contact and listen (unless the speaker is talking nonsense and/or show no sign of letting up), in part because at that point I feel less like an individual and more like a representative of the group. It’s still weird though, because the best I can offer in return are “Mmmm” sounds or vague “I see’s”. I feel bad for the person who actually started the topic too, because now they’re being sort of ignored. I’m not going to pretend I initiated the discussion, though, and continue to engage the speaker once they wind down.  And I can’t bring myself to bluntly say, “Why are you telling me? He’s the one who asked you.”

Things Men Have Said To Me (#16)

Years ago when I was in a park studying, a man I didn’t know walked by and we ended up having a conversation. He said he was divorced.

HIM (somewhat bitterly): “When you get married you think you’re going to have sex all the time. But it’s not like that at all.”

Things Men Have Said To Me (#15)

I was having a conversation with a man and I said how much I enjoyed Judge Judy.

HIM: “I don’t like her. She’s too judgemental.”

ME: “But she’s a judge!”

Short Thought 87 (bumpkin)

I knew a man who, with his wife, went overseas for work. On a return visit, he and I talked and I said how impressed I was with his new life and what he’d accomplished. He answered that he was “still a bumpkin” there just as he was here. This cut to the heart of it for me because I knew exactly what he meant. Whatever I do, wherever I go, I too will remain a bumpkin.