“Yeah, so this over here is the only building left out here that I used to work in that’s still occupied or existent–another one burned down, and the rest of them are empty–and there used to be these three big heat exchangers there on the east side, and one night one of them malfunctioned right at quitting time and it was looking like a big job and we had these UNIX boxes that controlled them and one of them was acting up, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t a hardware failure because it seemed fine when it was running, so I rolled up my sleeves and went to work and finally found where the control program was sending it the wrong signal, and anyway, my boss had called me earlier that night and told me to call him no matter what time it was when I got it working, and he appreciated me staying on and all, so it was like 2:30 in the morning and I called him and told him it was back online, and he said ‘thanks, you just saved me $50,000,’ and I said ‘no, I actually saved you $100,000, because…'”
…and I quit listening to that particular thread about then. Continuing:
“So yeah, we had some water damage, and of course the settlement wasn’t enough, is it ever?, but anyway I’ve just about got it all back together except for the base molding, and I know this guy who’s a great source for exotic woods, like the kind of stuff you won’t find at Home Depot or Lowe’s, and I thought it would be cool to see about making my own molding with a router out of this wood that I wouldn’t ever see anywhere else, and I…”
…and I quit listening to that particular thread about then.
I was aurally assaulted in this manner perhaps a year ago, and it all followed on the heels of me saying “nice to meet you, Lou.” (I’ll call him Lou.) I have not embellished. This is what the guy said 15 seconds after I met him. I would soon discover that he was like that all the time. He could not be quiet for five seconds in a row in the presence of another human being.
I’m amazed that some people are so poor at interpreting nonverbal cues like increasing conversational distance, breaking eye contact, and the like. Lou was possibly the most tedious person I’ve ever met. If you tried to interject with something intended to close the conversation politely, he’d talk over you. Eventually I just started walking away. He didn’t even process that correctly until you got far enough away that he was having to raise his voice so you could hear him.
I’ll readily admit that I have a pretty positive opinion of my skills with the spoken word. I like to be “the funny guy” at parties, meetings, or whatever, and I usually pull it off. But–and I know this will come as a shock to many of you, so be prepared–once in a while people just aren’t that into what I’m saying. So you know what I do then? I get drunk, mutter “I’ve had enough of this shit,” and start hiking back to my apartment (at night, five miles up a six-lane thoroughfare).
(Well, at least I thought that was a good answer one night at 22 years old.) But today, I shut up.
Occasionally I felt sorry for Lou. Correctly or not I’ll never know, but I interpreted his nonstop talking as a sign that he didn’t have many friends, or anything going on in his life sufficient to give him internal contentment. Most of the time I just thought “hey, you’re a grown man, and we weren’t friends for the first 98% of your life, so we don’t need to be now.”
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I can’t count how many times I’ve been in that situation. Lately it usually happens when I get waited on at the Leeann Chin counter at one of the supermarkets in Eagan. She’ll yak about highly inappropriate things incessantly every friggin’ time I go. The last time was Sunday when she yammered on about her husband’s independent film for a good 10 minutes or so, despite the fact I had my arms folded, kept looking around and saying “Uh huh… uh huh…”, and there was a line of people behind me.
I thought of my Lou immediately when we played that conversation game over at Sandra’s blog a while back.
But he did not peel his skin off. I wonder if I just didn’t ever give him the time to do something like that?
Come on Bo. I was the one who picked you up. The term “hiking” brings to mind some boots, granola bars, trail mix, etc. You were stumbling back to your apartment best I remember.
Charles
Pleased to have drawn you out, sir. 🙂
I’ve never met a single “Lou”. 😉