Eccentric Flower:199903/poor conversational odds
From Eccentric Flower
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twenty-five march poor conversational odds So yesterday, while thrashing around in the cold waters of my oubliette of despair, I went and had a long lunch with Nonelvis. We talked and I griped and we discussed and I pondered. For an hour. After lunch, I felt much better. Really - like an entirely different person. And although the salad of mixed greens with mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, spiced pecans and chevre with poppy seed dressing was great, I don't think it can account for my change of mood. I went back to work, light-hearted and productive, fixed all the code problems, then went home and wrote a very decent mouth organ column. Had a nice relaxing bath with one of the new Lush bathtoys, and slept the sleep of the just. That conversation made all the difference in the world. But we solved nothing. No answers were found. No accomodations were reached. I just needed to talk. Which I already suspected was the problem. This is not an easy thing to fix. I only have long face-to-face conversations with five people (and one of them is Nonelvis). Even if I had the resources to go out and meet new people, I don't get to the point where I can have, say, a no-holds-barred discussion of religion until I know the person well. I have a friend by correspondence who, I think, sometimes tries to coerce additional ideas out of me. I'm pretty sure she's startled by the idea that I'll talk about all kinds of things here but she can't usually get me to commit to long answers for the things she asks me about. I can explain the difference: This is me broadcasting to no one in particular. Email to her is a private conversation. If I say something inflammatory and nasty here, it's just me being b**chy. If I say something inflammatory to her, it may be taken as a personal affront. I have to know someone very well indeed before I'll say to them "I think you're wrong" ... secure in the knowledge that if they think I'm being a fount of piss and vinegar, they'll say so and not take it to heart ... and, likewise, secure that they like me enough that if they say something insulting to me it's not meant as a deep wound. I tell everyone "Be as rough as you like when you write me, it's nearly impossible to hurt my feelings" ... and this is true. But the counterpart of that is that I view all human contact with a certain emotional detachment. A thick skin insulates in both directions. Right now I want to have a conversation without the thick skin, and there are simply not more than a handful of humans in the world I'll let my guard down for. My odds are poor.
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