So I'm a talker.  I downright babble...  a LOT.  All the time, in fact.  It's just in my nature.  There are very few times when I don't have something to say on almost any given topic.  I've been like this all my life.

I can't say that I babble just to hear my own voice.  If that were the case, then I'm sure I would talk a lot more than I already do...  probably to myself more often as well, it's just that my thoughts race so fast that I can't keep up with them.  Saying some of it out loud allows me to rein in some of those thoughts, maybe slow things down in my head...  and also to better grasp what is going on, racing through my mind.

Most people tune me out.

No, let me rephrase that.  Almost all people tune me out at some point or another.  My mother has done it all my life.  My brother has done it most of his.  My closest friends do it.  It's a percentage thing, most of the time.  At best, my closest girlfriends can get, maybe, 75-80% of what comes out of my mouth...  but even that high a percentage is rare.

The reality is, for as much as I talk, I don't *say* all that much.  Mostly, it's just commentary on the mundane things, stories that I may have told before or am trying to perfect as performance stories (personal performances, not stage performances, but sometimes those too).  Verbose is not an unfair word to use in reference to me...  even those who primarily read what I have to say would agree.

This is what I'm accustomed to.  This is what I know.  All of this, I understand.  No one is going to listen to all the crap that comes out of my mouth and I do not expect them to.  As long as the important points are garnered, everything is fine.  As long as people know that they can ask about things I've already said, I know they'll understand eventually, if not in that moment.

All of a sudden, things are changing.  The way I operate, perhaps, needs to be reevaluated.  I understand how people react to me (as a whole) and I am comfortable within that, but all of a sudden (or so it seems), people are reacting to me in ways that are foreign to me.

I am a performer at heart.  I crave the spotlight and adore being the center of attention...  at least in groups.  I don't, so much, like being the center of attention in a one-on-one situation.  One-on-one I feel like I'm monopolizing things, and if I'm there with someone, I want them to be an active participant in the conversation as well.  It's the trading of ideas, barbs, jokes, wit, whatever that makes for good conversation, not me off on some monologue.  If too much attention is directed at me, by the only other person with me, I am uncomfortable, I feel exposed.

I was having dinner with a friend a couple of weeks ago when I first started thinking about this.  He's rather reserved and quiet, but somehow got talking about himself, disclosing things that I had suspected, but only because they are aspects (but not specifics) that apply to most people that I truly consider friends.  He became uncomfortable when he decided to start feeling exposed and said "You know, Fyre, this is why I hang out with you...  you talk a lot, so I don't have to."

Now, most people, when they say "You talk a lot" don't mean it in a complimentary fashion.  I believe that he did.  At least, I took it that way, and I think I remember him reassuring me that he meant it as a compliment, or at least not as a slam.  What came from it, though, was that same night, he started filling in details, petty, stupid details from things I had previously told him.  I was awed by the fact that he actually listens to a ridiculously high percentage of what comes out of my mouth.  Again, I talk a lot, but at the same time, I don't really say all that much in all those words.  For some reason that is beyond my ken, he absorbs the information...  even the pointless fluff.

I thought he was the exception to the rule.  At least, until today.

Today I had lunch with another friend of mine...  but not a close friend.  I suppose a friend-ranking entry will be in order one of these days.  Someone whose company I enjoy, but who I have no contact with outside of work.  Any word less than "friend" would belittle how I feel about him, but I seriously have no contact whatsoever with him outside of work.  At all.  Call me when you're single, babe. *wink*

*a-HEM*

So, anyway, I had lunch with this friend of mine.  He's usually the sort to laugh and joke and mock without getting too deep into things...  usually, but not always.  Today he decided to "try something different", so he sat there and gave me his undivided attention while I babbled on and on about falling in a hole and having to sit and not do anything for a full day and how I fell in the hole and how people reacted to it and all the sorts of things I babble on about.  But instead of his usual interjections, he just sat there and listened. 

It turned into a psychoanalysis of sorts.  I mean, I suspect this particular person to be a whole lot more psychic than he realizes, maybe even significantly more than I realize.  He asks the "right" questions and I think he already knows the answer he's looking for when he starts his probing and asks the questions that will lead to answer he already (thinks he) has.  I fell into his trap.  I told him things that I wasn't expecting to disclose, while keeping some things (odd things, don't know why) to myself.

It made me very nervous...  having him be so intently focused on me, on what I was saying, on the "hidden meaning" behind my words.  While part of that, I'm sure, is that it's not something I'm accustomed to, part of it was also being the center of this one person's attention.  By the time we parted ways, I was shaking.  He made me very nervous...  I'm not accustomed to that sort of attention.  It's unnerving.

But, you know, the part that really gets me about this whole essay that I've written is that I don't even know what I want from it.  I got used to people mostly not listening to whatever it is that I had/have to say.  I understand how to work within the behaviors that others have trained me to expect.  When someone, or multiple someones, change the rules on me, it leaves me flustered.  I don't know if I should try to temper myself around them, be more careful about what I say, or if I should just try to accept the fact that sometimes people actually listen to ALL the words that come out of my mouth...  and hope that I don't wind up saying far too much while in my comfort babble zone...

~FG };^>