Skip to main content

Swing and a miss.

As I sat there staring deeply into the pathetic attempt at pizza eating on my plate I realized something. Something important, I think. I am not very good at conversations. My mind started to drift to increasingly non-pertinent topics such as the time my friend and I found a deserted town and the time we went through the cave at Enchanted Rock. I struggled to snap myself back into the conversation at hand. "I really like fruit." She said. "What is your favorite kind of fruit?" I asked.

Facepalm.

Shouldn't I be getting past questions like that? I feel like I should actually be talking, not asking MySpace profile questions. I was hungry but my stomach was so twisted up I stopped being hungry. That was not really that great. I ended up not eating that much. That's okay. Plenty of opportunities to eat food. Not enough opportunities to talk.

That is okay too.

I guess talking to people just takes practice. Or maybe it's something that comes naturally to you. I am not that sure how sociability works. It's strange. I don't want to clam up. That would be terrible if I did. It's like a leashed dog. The dog gets used to tugging at the leash for so long that when you finally let it off it runs away. It always comes back, though, and stays in the same place where it had been leashed up. It got comfortable in that little area. It was a little part of the world where it could stay forever and never have a problem. I guess that is how I feel. I feel leashed up. Except I am not a dog. I don't feel like that.

That's okay. There's always next time. Sometimes.

Comments

Ashley said…
I'm not good at conversations either. :]
shwangshwang said…
its really about being an active listener and trying to get a feel for what the other person wants to talk about. takes practice definitely

Popular posts from this blog

Past the butterfly wall.

Spontaneous pneumothorax is a collection of air or gas in the space between the lungs and the chest that "collapses" the lung and prevents it from inflating completely.  Spontaneous means there is no traumatic injury to the chest or lung.   There are two types of spontaneous pneumothorax: primary and secondary. Primary spontaneous pneumothorax occurs in people without lung disease. It occurs most often in tall, thin, young people. I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket but I can't answer it. We are in the middle of rehearsal. It is not an uncommon event. We continue to play. The strap of my saxophone cuts into my neck. The nylon is rough against my skin. I look out of place. Everyone else is dressed casually; shorts, shirts, shoes optional. There I stand, a button down shirt and slacks. I'm entitled to dress up a little. It's my birthday. My phone vibrates again. I always used to roll my eyes whenever I saw those scenes in movies. The phone call. The bad news....

Pseudo-science (like psych).

I consider myself a man of science. I try to approach problems and deal with them logically, using observations previously recorded to handle new problems. So of course my interest was piqued when someone I knew posited that men are needier and more complicated than women. An interesting theory. But to properly examine it, one must understand the concept of sexual selection and its two aspects: male competition and female choice. Which brings us to point one: men are needier [in relationships] than women. This is true. In a natural/primal setting, the males are generally love-'em-leave-'em kinds of guys. Their main objective is to reproduce as much as they can. Humans, in their infinite wisdom, have decreased the emphasis on this to the point where it has become a footnote in male purpose. Civilization dictates that, instead of finding a partner for the sole purpose of reproduction, males find females for life companionship. With the effective removal of their natur...

I wonder, sometimes.

I am standing on the edge of a cliff face. A breeze whips past me as I stare out into the darkness. It's a familiar sight, comforting. The river bends below me. It stretches out, away from me at both ends. The arch of the bridge traverses the river, silhouetted by the house lights and golf course below us. So far away from us. The highway reaches out before us, straight into the hills and disappears on the horizon. It is silent. There are no cars. No planes. No animals. It is just us standing on top of the cliff. As it should be. It's late. A late weeknight. Just a normal Tuesday night to the world. I step away from the edge. In 5 minutes, I will be 22 years old. It's a turning point in my life. A fixed checkpoint. I'm only 21 years old, I'm not an actual adult yet. Maybe legally. But I'm still a child. I'm immature, I laugh at fart jokes. I laugh at everything. Why would I take anything seriously? 21 years old and we still have no responsibilities. We c...