conversation is a dull way to spend time
I'm imagining a conversation (as I do all too frequently)
Well,the lack of one. So in this scene I've managed to not talk for long enough to be noticed as not talking, one of the things I fear, and that spurs me to talk pretty much immediately. See, I worry people will think I"m snubbing them if I talk. But then I shouldn't talk, because of the following;
I don't want to talk about other people, because it's not my place to do so. I can't talk about myself because that's selfish and nobody's interested. I can't talk about my interests because they're too complicated and deep for anyone I know to discuss with me. So I shouldn't speak at all. But I want human company, so I'd like to be able to hang out without speaking. Ideally I'd be able to speak in questions in such a way that I kept the other person talking, but I can't figure out which questions I'm allowed to ask and which I'm not. I keep getting scolded for being too personal, even though I'm supposed to be trying to get to know people! So these are my choices. Say nothing, if I ever learn to overome being seen as a cold snob. Talk about myself and be seen as self centered. Talk about my interests and bore everyone with a lecture about a subject they don't want.
Now here's the subjects you would suggest: weather, that takes thirty seconds and then? Well, then I start getting into meteorology and I've lost them. Sports, I know nothing about it except my own negative opinions. Gossip, that's talking about other people and it's obnoxious. well, that's it, right? science is too complicated, philosophy too deep, sex, religion, and politics too inflammatory. So about what should I converse? It's all so goddamn shallow I can't turn my mind to it long enough to make a conversation. Why would I do that? well, because I'm lonely. right. But then I just hate the people I'm with for making me focus on such banal and pointless tripe. And there's the snob part. but it's not about "you're less than me" in my mind. I guess the whole "I'm above gossip and my time is too valuable for banal crap" is snobbish but I think THEIR time is too! I guess they enjoy it as much as I enjoy my sciency stuff.
goddamn dan's up here, end of focus.
try writing later.
Okay, he's down there actually shaving. Oh no, now he's back up for his phone. Fuck it pisses me off. it's not like that man can walk into a room and out again without disturbing me. "oh, human, must tell all about how funny I thought that video was, describing the whole thing." It wasn't funny. It was dull and lame and even in person I'd have been rolling my eyes.
Leaving me once again thinking about this dilemma. I'm lonely, and I hate people. I don't hate them, I hate their conversations. I find them stupid and slow and tiresome. they know it, clearly, because they hate me right back. What's more, they find my conversation complicated, dull, and tiresome. How then do I find a way to be around people, be part of a community, with this between us? I am not going to get a lobotomy over it so the problem of conversation won't go away. I can't expect to find some magical place where people can keep up with me and I can keep up with them! I mean, when I find people smart enough, they usually wind up just as prone to droning lectures on the subject that leave no room for contribution. I guess, the thing is, however much IQ you have, you want to be the teacher, to tell everyone something that makes you personally valuable for being the one who knows. So then I would be talking down to people, patronising them, as it would feel in my head. When I'm talking to people even now I'm constantly running up against the need to couch my statements in negating phrases, like "now I'm no expert and I could be wrong but" and "of course there's exceptions to that" and other pointless extra jibber jabber everyone should be quite able to assume.
Bottom line: I like talking to people, I don't like talking with them, but I don't like being completely alone either.
But I remember having good conversations with intelligent people. I remember listening rapt and paying attention and asking appropriate questions, so maybe my perspective right now is skewed by living with a fool and only one friend who's got nothing to say most of the time even if prodded with long silences or direct questions.
I tried a knitting club. Of course they were generally quite shallow. Or not, I don't frankly remember much except the constant tension I felt trying to mind my manners so they wouldn't reject me, and then feeling like I failed anyway and finally leaving in shame. it doesn't seem to matter anyway, my stress at trying to mind my manners translates as fakeness anyway. They just turn off to me.
God I wish I had someone with wisdom in my life. Someone who knows anything about anything human. Someone who could understand what I've been writing and dream up a new idea. Or one of those magical autism facilitators who goes along and helps mind the manners and helps smooth the wrinkles till the relationship gets past that tight point when everyone starts hating me and making horrible assumptions about my character. Sometimes I start to think they're all right and I'm utterly without moral fiber but so self deluded I can't see it. You know those people who fool themselves into thinking they're not doing what they're doing. They'll even be able to point to the victims of their actions and describe how those people were doing the very thing they suffered from!
I wonder sometimes if I'm actually one of them and can't see it. If maybe, if someone put a video on me during a conversation and played it back, would I see that in me? And if I did, how would I fix it? I am already doing everything I know to do. I make myself make the choices I should, every time I am presented, not the one I want or prefer. I shut myself up when I'm trying to change reality by pestering someone else. I don't let myself get into cruel jokes even with people who aren't here.
I don't know. But dan's back the fuck up here breaking my concentration again. I can't figure out anything like that.
Okay, now I just threw an ugly shouting tantrum at the pets over it all. Damn bird gets louder and louder the more focussed or emotional I get. Then the dog starts bugging me to calm down. I'm goddamn dead silent but that's not good enough, I have to be calm and cheery. Well I'm NOT, dammit! I have problems that don't solve themselves and nobody to help me fix them and I need some kind of opportunity to work through them. I have to do that here, at the kitchen table, because I don't have a goddamn office or desk, do I? I can't even set up a table somewhere else because it's cold outside, Dan's up and down stairs and there's no other horizontal surface not covered in crap anyway. Not at typing height. Fuck, there is no other table or anything and there's no door to close anywhere. My tiny house loft is going to have a curtain to draw closed across the opening and a typing desk I can sit on the floor at and I'm going to finally have a place to write when I want to.
So I worry that I'm actually a really nasty person. Behaviour like this morning adds to that worry. I only have two people I can ask and I can't anyway, because it adds up to simply pestering people to stroke your insecurity. They're both motivated to say what they think I want to hear, so there's no way to know if they're telling me what I'm asking.
See, I'd like a way to get the "must make word noises at each other" part of human company out of the way quickly and start engaging elsehow, but I don't know how.
I think the problem isn't just mine, though. I'm imagining the sorts of activities that could replace conversation as entertainment and realizing nobody does those things. Stoners and drunks labled them as "lame" and "immature" and "uncool" back in the 70s and gaming never recovered. No board games, card games, word games, or otherwise. People won't do chore things during relaxation time either so no crafts, busy work, or projects either.
This is what drives me batty about trying to visit people, they actually just sit there consuming food and drink and making noise with their mouths and do NOTHING else! no charades. No game of gin rummy or whist. I've tried, the answer is always no.
Perhaps it's time I started carryign a deck of cards again and whip out a game of solitaire and see if the activity invites people to ask to play cards. cards are the least "lame" alternative to "being cool" by doing nothing and having no emotions outside of anger.
Damn, that whole "cool factor" thing was created by our entertainment media. It was step one of breaking society to weaken the workers and make financial slaves out of us. Teach us that anger and disconnection are the only feelings we're allowed to express or reward, and that joy is a thing we seek, not a thing we create.
Well,the lack of one. So in this scene I've managed to not talk for long enough to be noticed as not talking, one of the things I fear, and that spurs me to talk pretty much immediately. See, I worry people will think I"m snubbing them if I talk. But then I shouldn't talk, because of the following;
I don't want to talk about other people, because it's not my place to do so. I can't talk about myself because that's selfish and nobody's interested. I can't talk about my interests because they're too complicated and deep for anyone I know to discuss with me. So I shouldn't speak at all. But I want human company, so I'd like to be able to hang out without speaking. Ideally I'd be able to speak in questions in such a way that I kept the other person talking, but I can't figure out which questions I'm allowed to ask and which I'm not. I keep getting scolded for being too personal, even though I'm supposed to be trying to get to know people! So these are my choices. Say nothing, if I ever learn to overome being seen as a cold snob. Talk about myself and be seen as self centered. Talk about my interests and bore everyone with a lecture about a subject they don't want.
Now here's the subjects you would suggest: weather, that takes thirty seconds and then? Well, then I start getting into meteorology and I've lost them. Sports, I know nothing about it except my own negative opinions. Gossip, that's talking about other people and it's obnoxious. well, that's it, right? science is too complicated, philosophy too deep, sex, religion, and politics too inflammatory. So about what should I converse? It's all so goddamn shallow I can't turn my mind to it long enough to make a conversation. Why would I do that? well, because I'm lonely. right. But then I just hate the people I'm with for making me focus on such banal and pointless tripe. And there's the snob part. but it's not about "you're less than me" in my mind. I guess the whole "I'm above gossip and my time is too valuable for banal crap" is snobbish but I think THEIR time is too! I guess they enjoy it as much as I enjoy my sciency stuff.
goddamn dan's up here, end of focus.
try writing later.
Okay, he's down there actually shaving. Oh no, now he's back up for his phone. Fuck it pisses me off. it's not like that man can walk into a room and out again without disturbing me. "oh, human, must tell all about how funny I thought that video was, describing the whole thing." It wasn't funny. It was dull and lame and even in person I'd have been rolling my eyes.
Leaving me once again thinking about this dilemma. I'm lonely, and I hate people. I don't hate them, I hate their conversations. I find them stupid and slow and tiresome. they know it, clearly, because they hate me right back. What's more, they find my conversation complicated, dull, and tiresome. How then do I find a way to be around people, be part of a community, with this between us? I am not going to get a lobotomy over it so the problem of conversation won't go away. I can't expect to find some magical place where people can keep up with me and I can keep up with them! I mean, when I find people smart enough, they usually wind up just as prone to droning lectures on the subject that leave no room for contribution. I guess, the thing is, however much IQ you have, you want to be the teacher, to tell everyone something that makes you personally valuable for being the one who knows. So then I would be talking down to people, patronising them, as it would feel in my head. When I'm talking to people even now I'm constantly running up against the need to couch my statements in negating phrases, like "now I'm no expert and I could be wrong but" and "of course there's exceptions to that" and other pointless extra jibber jabber everyone should be quite able to assume.
Bottom line: I like talking to people, I don't like talking with them, but I don't like being completely alone either.
But I remember having good conversations with intelligent people. I remember listening rapt and paying attention and asking appropriate questions, so maybe my perspective right now is skewed by living with a fool and only one friend who's got nothing to say most of the time even if prodded with long silences or direct questions.
I tried a knitting club. Of course they were generally quite shallow. Or not, I don't frankly remember much except the constant tension I felt trying to mind my manners so they wouldn't reject me, and then feeling like I failed anyway and finally leaving in shame. it doesn't seem to matter anyway, my stress at trying to mind my manners translates as fakeness anyway. They just turn off to me.
God I wish I had someone with wisdom in my life. Someone who knows anything about anything human. Someone who could understand what I've been writing and dream up a new idea. Or one of those magical autism facilitators who goes along and helps mind the manners and helps smooth the wrinkles till the relationship gets past that tight point when everyone starts hating me and making horrible assumptions about my character. Sometimes I start to think they're all right and I'm utterly without moral fiber but so self deluded I can't see it. You know those people who fool themselves into thinking they're not doing what they're doing. They'll even be able to point to the victims of their actions and describe how those people were doing the very thing they suffered from!
I wonder sometimes if I'm actually one of them and can't see it. If maybe, if someone put a video on me during a conversation and played it back, would I see that in me? And if I did, how would I fix it? I am already doing everything I know to do. I make myself make the choices I should, every time I am presented, not the one I want or prefer. I shut myself up when I'm trying to change reality by pestering someone else. I don't let myself get into cruel jokes even with people who aren't here.
I don't know. But dan's back the fuck up here breaking my concentration again. I can't figure out anything like that.
Okay, now I just threw an ugly shouting tantrum at the pets over it all. Damn bird gets louder and louder the more focussed or emotional I get. Then the dog starts bugging me to calm down. I'm goddamn dead silent but that's not good enough, I have to be calm and cheery. Well I'm NOT, dammit! I have problems that don't solve themselves and nobody to help me fix them and I need some kind of opportunity to work through them. I have to do that here, at the kitchen table, because I don't have a goddamn office or desk, do I? I can't even set up a table somewhere else because it's cold outside, Dan's up and down stairs and there's no other horizontal surface not covered in crap anyway. Not at typing height. Fuck, there is no other table or anything and there's no door to close anywhere. My tiny house loft is going to have a curtain to draw closed across the opening and a typing desk I can sit on the floor at and I'm going to finally have a place to write when I want to.
So I worry that I'm actually a really nasty person. Behaviour like this morning adds to that worry. I only have two people I can ask and I can't anyway, because it adds up to simply pestering people to stroke your insecurity. They're both motivated to say what they think I want to hear, so there's no way to know if they're telling me what I'm asking.
See, I'd like a way to get the "must make word noises at each other" part of human company out of the way quickly and start engaging elsehow, but I don't know how.
I think the problem isn't just mine, though. I'm imagining the sorts of activities that could replace conversation as entertainment and realizing nobody does those things. Stoners and drunks labled them as "lame" and "immature" and "uncool" back in the 70s and gaming never recovered. No board games, card games, word games, or otherwise. People won't do chore things during relaxation time either so no crafts, busy work, or projects either.
This is what drives me batty about trying to visit people, they actually just sit there consuming food and drink and making noise with their mouths and do NOTHING else! no charades. No game of gin rummy or whist. I've tried, the answer is always no.
Perhaps it's time I started carryign a deck of cards again and whip out a game of solitaire and see if the activity invites people to ask to play cards. cards are the least "lame" alternative to "being cool" by doing nothing and having no emotions outside of anger.
Damn, that whole "cool factor" thing was created by our entertainment media. It was step one of breaking society to weaken the workers and make financial slaves out of us. Teach us that anger and disconnection are the only feelings we're allowed to express or reward, and that joy is a thing we seek, not a thing we create.