Everybody must know the kind of people who talk a lot about their lives but never ask you a question about your own. When you are politely listening to them rambling on about their preoccupations, you are nodding along, varying the quality of your light smile, adjusting your limbs. You ask them all the right questions at all the right times. From time to time you attempt to nudge the exchange into a more general zone where some neutral material might be considered. From there perhaps you might be able to lightly push the conversation off into a a different direction, but no, they come marauding into the space and drag you back into the them-zone. They will not accept the air of that abstract space which is the intermediate place where civilized conversation goes to find another subject.
It’s not that I want to talk about my life. I have nothing much I want to talk about. I’m not pushing anything in particular. If the narrow side-door that leads out from that big barn were to be slid open and I were to be escorted through into my little room of things, I would probably want to just point out my scant possessions and then usher my interlocutor out again. But after two hours of relentless clobbering I am ready to leave my little room where it is and just slip away into the night.
peoplearerubbish 