What were you saying? No wait, what was I saying.*

I went to the park during the last serious sun break a few days ago to take in some quiet and some light. Armed with a journal and a book, I bought coffee and found a spot at a wooden table amid bark dust and grass.

Within 5 minutes of my being there I could sense out of the corner of my eye an old man approach. I did not look up or make eye contact. His opening line, "I'm the park pervert." It was suppose to be a joke. And I said, not laughing and not looking up from my task, "Grrrreat." I was not hiding my disdain. "I try to be funny," he said. I did not answer.

But my rudeness didn't matter, and he asked me if I was in school or if I had gone to college. He didn't really care what my answer was. It was a set up so that he could tell this joke about being just a few credits away from a math degree. He asked me what I studied, and again, it didn't matter, it was just a segue so that he could sing a fight song he'd made up with clever lyrics. He asked me a few more questions and again, none of them really mattered, they were all just vehicles for him to say the next thing in his stand up routine.
I spend a lot of time thinking about how people interact. I find it fascinating that as a society we would considered it completely rude for me to get up and walk away from a situation where a stranger (a co-worker, a parent, or a friend) spoke at me for 10 minutes with rhyming dirty poetry and tales of his ex-wife's cheating with her boss yet we do not call his behavior rude. We call it socially awkward or lonely or crazy, but we do not call it rude.

And subject matter isn't really the issue here. (Although that may change the level of discomfort or boredom.)  It's how that subject matter is being conveyed.

I use a term for when I am in pure talking mode. I tell Z that I am "talking at" him. I use the term to mean that I do want to tell him these things, but he is there as an audience member not as a true and equal participant. Sometimes this happens when I need to let off steam. Or want to tell a joke. Or am caught up in reminiscing. Or am standing on a podium of some sort. But I should not be confusing this with conversation. This isn't conversation. It's pure talking, and at these times, I am demanding an audience.

But I need to remember that happiness as an audience member has to do with choice. Audiences choose to be audience members. They are not forced into being audience members. You go to a concert to listen. You go to a performance. You go to a comedian. You get a choice because you are interested in what they are going to send you're way. You're ok with not talking back. And yet, social situations push us into an audience role constantly without our consent. And once we are there we have very few options.

Sometimes people just need to hear themselves talk. It can be a really useful vehicle for emotional release. For many things. But not for two way connection. When someone talks at you, he may feel connection, but the person receiving the talking rarely does. And I know that if I'm not careful, I will slide into demanding audiences not because I really need one, but out of habit  and because I don't actually know how to have a real conversation. Conversation, like so many things, is a skill. It's much easier to talk solely about oneself than to learn how to engage and react in a real way.

Truly good conversation can be so refreshing. It's a mixture of all the things that can be one sided audience situations but instead of it being 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 2 hours of holding court, it's a back and forth of reflection, reminiscing, joke telling, sentimentality and pop culture, and topical issues of the day. It's all of those things shared equally by both sides. Where you are both more than just an audience member. You get to be a participant. You get to connect. And it is truly wonderful.

*The headline is an actual quote from one of my childhood best friends. She is in no way the subject of this post..but damn the saying is relevant.