Rest assured, I am every bit as sick of whatever it is I’m blathering about as you are, if not more so – you’re sitting through this for the first, maybe second time, but I have to hear myself go on about this constantly. I cannot stop, though; I must at all times be talking.
When I am alone, I also talk incessantly, but when I wear myself out, I can stop. Not so when another person is around. I am so conditioned to solitude as a normal state of affairs and the presence of other people as some unusual holiday Event that must be constantly focused on, that I cannot allow myself to shut up in your presence – I will be working very, very hard until you go away from me. The second another human appears in my vicinity, I begin to talk to them. And I will continue unceasingly and emphatically to talk to them until they are not there anymore. It’s wearying, it’s annoying, I don’t even want to be doing it. But it’s a compulsion – I can’t stop, because I’m uncomfortable.
You see, if there is a moment of silence, it means that everyone is mad at me. And I can’t bear that, so no moments of silence will occur on my watch.
On some level, you are an enemy force, I have dug myself a trench and the constant, unceasing stream of prattle is my barbwire, my grenades and (as a last resort) my bayonet. Even with a very close friend who has known me for years, I cannot stop. The addition of alcohol or other sedatives only makes matters worse: I still feel my mission in life is to fight vigilantly against any slight lapse in conversation, but now I must work twice as hard and half as articulately, fighting against the depressant we’ve just ingested. It’s infinitely more stressful now, because it’s harder to keep it up, and I have less control over the content of my monologue.
I have tried. I have done everything I possibly can to break myself of this compulsive yammering. I have tried to focus on cultivating an air of mystery. (Didn’t work. Forgot to.) I have tried to vent my opinions and concerns in writing, first in a personal diary, and then on a public blog, to get it all out of my system. (Merely fed the beast.) For a time, I even wrote ‘Shut up’ in thick, black, permanent Sharpie on the back of my hand every morning for about two weeks. (It proved to be a conversation starter.)
Leaving rooms is difficult, because no matter how much I want to go, I feel that I can’t leave when I’ve been dominating the conversation, and I’m always dominating the conversation. Then, when I’m quiet for a minute, trying to create a little space so that I can then leave looking like I’ve been a quiet, sane participant in the evening’s gathering, I start to think over whatever I’ve been jabbering about, and I decide that something I said sounded crazy or inappropriate, and I can’t leave people with that as their parting impression. So, I start in again and say a great many other things, so that people will forget about the thing I want them to forget about, in the giant blitz of crap I’ve blanketed them with since that point. But then, oh cripers! I’ve been dominating again, and can’t leave until I’ve been a good listener for awhile. And so it goes. Come four a.m., I’m still at a party that died at ten, going on and on and on about ‘who writes the copy on the backs of chip bags,’ to two exhausted, astounded, utterly confused hosts, who have long since surrendered to their strange fate, and sprawl over their couch holding each others’ hands and staring wide-eyed and apprehensive at their hopped-up captor. The sun rises, and then it sets again, but we will never leave. The three of us are locked forever now in a nightmarish tableau.
Please. Do me a favor. The next time we are at a social event together, and I am running on at the mouth, look at me and realize: I am every bit as much a prisoner of my tedious conversational dominance as everybody else. If you look deep within my eyes, you will see the panic there. If you listen closely to the barrage of words pouring forth, you will realize it makes about as much sense as automatically generated spam. Tackle me to the ground. Tie me up and gag me, sit me in the middle of the circle, and go about your business. I imagine it will be the first time in my life I will be able to relax in a social situation. Free me from my own mouth, please, people. I beg of you.
