jecca_mehlota | Mute's looking good.

Considering how dependent we are, both as a society and as individuals, upon communication, you would think I would, you know, not suck at it as much as I do.

I've been here twenty-one years and been speaking for most of them. You would think I'd have some basic idea of how to be half-decent at it by now, wouldn't you?

Why am I so ridiculously incapable of talking like a normal human? I think too much, I think entirely too much. I don't get the jokes because the jokes don't make much sense, I don't understand the point of "small talk."

But the silence always feels so awkward and I start talking - babbling - about anything and it makes less sense and I just wish I could shut up somehow but I can't, even when I realize whoever I'm talking to is beginning to want to hit me.

(Which isn't always true. Sometimes I sit there and am literally incapable of saying anything.)

I honestly think sometimes that my mind and my mouth are not connected properly. They just don't relate. I will just talk and talk about something, I don't know, work, maybe, or something that happened while I was driving, or a song on the radio, or anything. And I jump subjects too much. My thought-trains are perpetually jumping tracks. My mind will be going, "Just shut up, you're not making any sense." My inane ramblings give me headaches. Stop thinking.

It's just, I try so hard to have normal conversations with people - my family, people at work or in my classes (I don't need to worry about talking to my friends because I don't have any because I don't know how to make any! Is that cheerfulness false? I honestly can't tell sometimes) and I just can't.

I have problems with it at work because all anyone does is complain about the customers (or the new manager, but she deserves it), or ask me how the weather is. Inane things, really inane things, and my mind just can't wrap around why half of it is important, and I know, I can tell, they're just saying half of it out of some obligation to make me feel included somehow, I don't know. It's awkward, you don't need to force it. I don't know how to talk to people, you don't need to try to include me. You just got in, don't ask me how the weather is.

I can't even talk to my family! How pathetic is that? I will try to make a joke and no one will understand that I am joking, so they'll get angry at me for always complaining or something. Half the subjects that I would bring up that aren't joking complaints (I really don't mind most things I whine about, it's just I thought they were amusing stories but I guess not...) I know I can't because my father will just use them as a (completely nonsensical) bridge to talking about me or something. They like to pick on me, but they get angry when I pick back, and then they wonder why I'm so defensive. I'm sorry! I really am! I'm not even trying to be passive aggressive at all, ever, anymore! I just suck, okay? I've accepted it! You and the world have finally driven it in, so just leave me alone now. (And then you wonder why I have no self-esteem! It couldn't possible be because I never get any positive feedback, could it? PARENTS. Do you have any idea how ridiculous it is that almost all of the compliments I've received in the last six or seven months - or at least the ones I've actually believed at all to be sincere - have come from people I have never met in real life? The others are also from people I only speak to over the internet because they now live several states away.)

(Actually, I honestly think if I still had someone here that I felt considered me a friend and valued me as such that I would be a lot better off.

... Mike, really, you're my friend, but we're not close, which I think is more how I'm meaning things here. If you're reading this for some reason.)

I don't know how to talk to non-work, non-family people. I don't know. I've got one person I guess I could call a friend, but we don't talk anymore, either. Probably because I fail so fantastically at conversations. I just... don't know how to talk about normal things.

I can talk about, er, video games. Television programs I like. Movies I've seen recently. I used to be able to talk about books, but my reading's been slacking off lately, and no one ever read the same books as me, anyway. I was reading science fiction and they were reading vampires or teen romance.

I can't talk about boys, God, I can't talk about boys. I don't care about boys!

I used to think I was half-decent at communicating over the internet, but lately instant messenger conversations (and I can never start them, because I don't know how to start conversations) have just been falling dead because I never have anything to say or I miss the jokes again, or whatever the reason is, it's probably my fault.

Obviously I've just gone and turned incoherent.

It's not that I don't want to talk to people. I'd like to be able to have conversations. I don't know how. I never had an opportunity to learn. I had so few friends through early school levels and my friends always moved away, or whatever happened. And then middle school no one would speak to me because I was the loser through whatever forces dictate these things, and in high school I really had no friends at first.

I guess there were a few years. First year of college was actually really great! Second, not so much, but still good. Last year wasn't so bad, either, though I didn't have any friends... geh.

I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. There I go again, just rambling but I guess at least I stayed on one generic subject this time? Great! I can stay focused when I'm swimming in emo.

I'm so sick of people telling me - either verbally or through non-verbal cues - to shut up whenever I start talking. I'm so sick of being annoying. I'm so sick of running my mouth off. Verbal Diversion is a terrible, terrible defense mechanism. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Though, of course, this all only applies when I'm not going through those periods when my mind eats my voice and I start thinking so much that communication really does become impossible.

Hell. Need to do something about this. Even just... hrm. Tomorrow. Something. ugh. If it backfires at me as spectacularly as it has the last two times I have tried, I will take a hint. Please, please, don't.

haa haha, I have so many emo-issues that I guess this is where one would make a joke about how I should become of psychologist (or at least want to become one). No, no, I do not want to be a psychologist. I would be a terrible one. If I had me as a psychologist, I would demand my money back and a new one.

... Actually, if I had me as a psychologist, I might be happy with it. I know me. I trust me. ... I think I would ask myself for a hug, because then I would give me one without making one of those cracks (that appear to be obligatory for some reason) about how I am awkward and stiff to hug. I'm sorry, world, I am not good at hugging. I have almost no experience and I am awkward. Stop making fun of me because it doesn't help.

Ugh. Ugh. Sorry. Shutting up now.