OK...my son, Jonathan, says I'm just mean. I say I'm just discerning about whom I converse with. I like to talk, a lot...really, I do. Sometimes they can't get me to shut up at work, but this is a situation in which I feel comfortable. Similarly, my husband and children are rarely able to get a word in edgewise when we're talking at home. I swear there are many times when I can see each one of them do the mental eyeroll when Mommy starts off on one of her rants.
However, in public, it's another story entirely. I often wonder when I'm riding on a bus or traveling on an airplane why other folks feel so overwhelmingly compelled to speak to me. I'm not talking about a simple, "Hey, can I sit here?" or "Hey, can you please get off my foot?" I'm talking about folks who insist on attempting to converse with me, especially when I'm trying to make it quite clear that I don't want to talk to them...not now nor at any time during their lifetime. You know the drill. You sit down on an airplane or a bus with a great book that you've just been dying to read, and some dweeb with an accent that sounds like he just got off the last goatwagon from East Hillbillyville sits down next to you and starts asking you inane stuff like what your favorite brand of pickle is or how to get foot stink out of sweatsocks. I mean, really, dude, they're called sweatsocks for a reason. Damn!
I've asked my son on a number of occasions just what makes these people think that they can talk to me. On those occasions, he doesn't even bother to do a mental eyeroll, he just rolls his eyes right in front of me. Hmmmph.
The funny thing is I'm not really a shy person. No one I know would call me a shy person...and I most definitely did not marry a shy person. I'm not really a "mean" person either...at least not down deep...where it counts. I'm sometimes loud and rude for effect and my boss once characterized me as a big dog who barks a lot but has no bite whatsoever. There are just many times when I don't want to be bothered.
Even funnier is that I do admire those folks who have the gift of indiscriminate gab with anyone. They will never lack for friends or they will at least always have company. My father was one of those special people. Now I don't mean he was a person who rode the short bus, I mean that along with all of his other wonderful qualities, he had that special ability to chat with anyone about anything at any time. I don't think that there was anyone on this planet that my dad wouldn't have been able to find some small common ground with. He appeared to me and...true, maybe it was appearances only...but he appeared to me to be as comfortable with princes as he was with paupers.
What's really hilarious is that whereas I really only want to talk to extremely good looking, interesting, intelligent men from exotic locations when I'm traveling, I married one of those special guys like my dad...one of those people who has the "gift" and make it their mission in life to share that "gift" with EVERYONE. Jeff, the man I married, the love of my life, teaches high school chemistry and physics. I know...I know...YAWN, right? The thing is, though, he has a huge range of topics that he is equally comfortable in discussing. You are as likely to interrupt him during a conversation about the melting temperture of NaCl as you are to find him discussing theatrical makeup techniques or the mating habits of the Galapagos tortoise.
Likewise, this man, the man whom I adore, has never in his life met a stranger. You know that passenger on the last goatwagon out of East Hicksville? Jeff could spend hours talking to him. He could spend just as much time talking to that hick about pickle brands as he would talking to Steve Jobs about new computer applications for the Mac or to Rupert Murdoch about his latest media acquisition. If I happen to lose him in the grocery store or at the mall, I'm pretty sure that I'm likely to find him chatting up the most unfortunately unattractive salesperson in the building about how swell the soup can display looks. It's not just that he approaches people to start a conversation, it's that he has that approachable quality that makes other people seek him out, requiring him to validate their opinons and insights with his conversational input.
Maybe my annoyance in these talkers lies in the fact that when those same folks approach me to try to converse, they say incredibly STUPID things like, "When is your baby due?" Even though, my youngest "baby" was born almost 18 years ago.
Yeah, maybe that's why I'm so pissed off all of the time.
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There is a lot going on in this entry - you could almost make a whole series out of it! Perceived approachability is not the same thing as sociability, which I think is one of your points and certainly one of mine. Most of the time I have my force field up but once in a while I launch into long conversations with taxi drivers, etc. Craig sits beside me, wondering why the hell I care about talking to this person we will never see again. (And maybe I don't care, but I just got the wild hair to entertain myself by practicing conversational skills during a long cab ride, and/or while I am coming off my airplane Xanax.) Craig only talks to strangers in bars and not often even there. Some people think that Craig is the social person and I'm the quiet one - others say exactly the opposite. Actually we are a good mix because we each gravitate socially to certain types of people and certain situations. It sounds to me like you and Jeff have a marital dynamic like that too. Rather than an absolute like Sarah hides at parties or Sherri hates talking to people at airports, the more complicated reality is that we are the people we feel like being on a given day (hour, millisecond, whatever).
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