i am not a conversationalist. or at least i’ve never thought of myself as one. when speaking on certain topics, or to people with whom i’m comfortable, i admittedly do well. i’ve even recently been praised for my conversational abilities by family whom i don’t really know and haven’t seen or spoken to in more than a decade.

still, i’ve never thought of myself as a ‘talker.’ i’m more inclined to listen to conversation than participate in it, usually because i don’t think i have anything compelling to contribute. put another way, i’ll speak when i have something to say, but not really otherwise. in this way, i think i take after my father, which on some level fills me with a sense of pride. on another level, however, my aversion to make ‘small talk,’ or rather my unwillingness to speak if i don’t think its important can be seen, in a certain light, as a hinderance.

…i tried several iterations of language here in an attempt to avoid sharing certain details, but omitting said details leaves the post incomplete and maybe a bit muddled. sigh….

last week, i went to see a girl i saw regularly while i was working at party headquarters. she’s working on the campaign of one of the candidates i support and so i went to say hi, catch up a bit, and get some information. during the course of the conversation, i got a strange vibe… and toward the end of the conversation, there was an awkward break, or stumbling of the conversation. i exited as gracefully as i could and returned to a campaign meeting taking place in another room.

had i been another person, a better conversationalist, better at the small talk, the stumbling, i believe, could have been avoided. i’ve learned to be comfortable with most of my little foibles and so can’t say this sort of thing keeps me up nights, but it can be, in these sorts of situations, a bit annoying.

and while i’m not surprised by my lapse, the conversational breakdown seemed particularly pronounced at the time and does so still. maybe i’m puzzled by her shared, at least temporarily, conversational awkwardness. read into it what you like….