Excommunicated

by Cathy

Some people are just not cut out to have personal, one-on-one conversations. They might do better in larger social groups where they can 'hide' within the conversations of others, reiterate a point someone else has brought up, can be more reserved in expressing their viewpoints, or even get on their soapbox as they now have a wider audience. However, when they are left to their own, conversational devices, they just cannot master the basic survival skill of relevant, two-way communication.

For your convenience, I've taken the liberty to categorize some of these ill-communicators as follows:


The Ummm...Pauser: Get it out already, wouldja? Every sentence starts and ends with an annoying "Ummm" and then that's followed by a Long. Ass. Pause. Just exhausting to converse with this one.

The Do-Di-Do-er: This one feels the need to sing a little ditty when there is a pause in conversation, usually arising when they are asked a question and are thinking of/searching for the answer. "Do di do, hmmm, let's see...do do do..." Must we fill every void and silence?

The Brick Waller: Another exhausting one; have you ever had a one-sided conversation with someone where you are the only one talking? And they just sit there? Like you're talking to a...well...you know. If you get a "Uh-huh" or a "Right" or "Yeah" out of them, you've had a conversation!

The I Love to Hear Myself Talker: This one is the exact opposite of the Brick Waller, to the point where you cannot find a gap to start a sentence and when you do, it gets smothered up by more of their babbling. You can't shut them up to save your life so you have to feign an emergency to stop the conversation.

The I Know Everything About Everythinger: You can only take them so much because you know, at some point, they are pulling shit out of their ass to prove the fake fact that they are know-it-allers. "Oh, the long-term impact of global warming? I got a friend who's tight with Al Gore, and he said..."

As I am writing this post and as fate would have it, my husband texts me to tell me he ran into so-and-so at a coffee shop and how he just won't. stop. talking. This I Love to Hear Myself Talker has been our neighbor for 15 years so out of sheer politics,  Joe is making the effort to be polite...while texting me about how he's going bananas.

This reminded me of a time when Joe and I were on a sailboat in Los Angeles with some of his friends and their work friends. The whole trip took about four hours  as we sailed to and from Catalina Island. Getting there was great, but by our return journey, having already spent a few hours on the bobbing boat and now, with the angry movement of the current churning our stomachs, we were all trying to keep our lunch down by gazing out towards the horizon to level ourselves.

Meanwhile, this is when another passenger, Tennessee Tuxedo (the nickname we gave him because he looked like the cartoon character and wouldn't you know it, he was from Tennessee) decides he wants to chat us up. Apparently, the feeling of nausea and seasickness gets his lips flapping. There we were, Joe and I half-hunched over the railing, eyes pinned to the horizon, begging for this boat to sail faster to dry land while Tennessee Tuxedo is talking about acting (surprise), his past experience, the industry, and asking us questions about our profession. Then he pops open a beer and asks us if we would like one. 'Do we look like we want to drink a beer right now?' I remember thinking while contemplating flipping his Southern ass overboard.

Conversing with people like these just makes me want to, well, excommunicate them. They just don't GET it. So I see my choices in conversing with them as follows:

-Politely exchange email addresses and cease and avoid all facetime communication
-Politely nod, smile, and/or keep conversation down to a minimum
 or
-Politely throw them overboard.

Some things are much easier said than done.