Michael Buffington

Conversation Dominator No Longer

Tuesday, July 05 2005

Honestly, I like sharing dreams I’ve had on my blog, but I know other bloggers whom I respect and wish to emulate think its stinky, so me being somewhat foggy when it comes to the blogosphere (despite having written this blog for 7+ years (the + indicates that I have Zip disks with databases predating my archives, yet no Zip drive to read them)) tend to stick with the herd. I’m not an entirely original person and I’m fine with that. Pioneers take the first arrows.

But this one dream has had me thinking for weeks, and I can’t shake it. The details of the dream itself are actually not that important – I was at a therapist of some sort, and therapist was admonishing me for using conversations with other people as my own form of entertainment, something that he felt was pretty one sided and selfish.

And that alone has haunted me ever since, because I believe it’s mostly true. I’m a total introvert. You probably wouldn’t know it if you’ve spent any time with me, but it takes me serious effort to talk to people. It’s not natural flowing off the tongue kind of stuff, I have to put real energy into having the conversation, which probably makes me seem like a very gregarious person (the irony). When I’m not prepared for a conversation, I come across as being distant, and in another world (I’m probably thinking about puppies or skateboarding).

When thinking about this dream, I realize that often when I’m engaged in some kind of vigorous conversation, I usually feel like I’m driving it, and that often it revolves around what I want the conversation to be because that allows me some degree of predicability. It’s not that I’m following some kind of script or even really consciously doing it, but if I can see where a conversation is going, I have time to think about it ahead of time. And now that I realize this, I’m starting to feel guilty because I don’t think of others enough.

So, as expected, I’m building myself some software to help me direct my thinking towards other people. It’s my second home brewed Rails app, and if you made it this far, you should know that I’m making it out of my love for you, the person I’ve had a conversation with in the past in which I dominated it and talked about Hair Bricks,Diaper Changing Machines,Nano Pants,You Should Do Something About Your Short Leg, or Your Dog Needs Rollerskates and a Guitar.