Small Talk

At work they like to talk about sex and glorify things like the improbable or the past...

My human tendency to attempt to blend in with my surroundings is suffocating there. It's not that I don't want to talk about it, but that the atmosphere is all wrong. It messes me up a little bit.

Lately I've noticed that I have many details of my life summarized, categorized and filed away to be brought up casually in small-talk and conversation. Maybe this is normal. But I hate it.

It's true that I have very few friends. And anyone who tries to convince me otherwise is either too kind hearted or they don't know me. I thought it was kind of funny at first... then lonely... and now I realize that it is me. This small number of people I like and trust... in a way it makes up my idea of "who I really am".

When I talk to them about the improbable or the past (or sex), I mean it. I really want to communicate with them. I want to have a connection, I want to share myself, and I hope they will open up to me too.

When I talk about those things to people I don't like, know, or care about... I realize now that it feels disturbing.

For example, when someone asks "what is your family like?" or "have you ever had a boyfriend, what was he like?" I can list off details. Numbers, anecdotes, and generally converse about them...

...but when I see their faces. My family. My tormentors. My loves... it tears me up to know what I have said about them to others. Not because it is untrue or defamatory... but because those who have listened are undeserving in my eyes.

I dig out old photographs, sometimes new ones of a place where I do not exist, and I want to cry. I want to take back everything I said. I want to hold the truth dear and secret, and stop undermining the things that are/were important to me.

They are not in my life anymore. They are not hurting me anymore. They do not care about me anymore.

I don't want to tell anyone.

So... why do I?

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