The big awkward silence….

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I’m not a fan of the awkward silence, at least not among “structured” time, meetings, conference calls, coffee to have a “discussion”, etc. Also when I’m the one “hosting” a get together I’m even more annoyed by awkward silences, my wife on the other hand has no problem with them (weirdo!). For me, it’s a lack of relationship that causes these in social gatherings, because among good friends, a “silent pause” is rare, but when it happens among friends it’s OK, because normally it isn’t awkward, rather it is a thoughtful silence.

I remember a time about 10 years ago where I invited a whole bunch of friends over to my apartment, but didn’t really have a plan, we just wanted to hang out… but once we got there we had nothing to do, and didn’t even have much of a conversation, except “now what?” – boy did I hate that. We went from one awkward silence to another, until finally we all left to do something – wow… what a host I was back then.

I’m more comfortable these days, and don’t always have to “do something” – and usually I can start a conversation rather easily, even with people I don’t know all that well. Still though, I find myself, even in business situations where I think to myself “I wish I would’ve said this, or that” – but I don’t have that “oh my God I was so awkward” feeling about it anymore.

Thanks for reading a random thought about life, until next time. Happy Friday!

A new name?

After yesterday’s little post about small talk, I think I might change the name of this blog… while “Living as a foreigner” has obvious meaning… well obvious to the Bible peeps… it doesn’t really reflect what I want this blog to be about.  Looking at some of my first years I noticed this blog was about me… what a concept… a “Web Log” about the author!  Somewhere along the lines I got distracted, sorry.

So, I’m trying to decide between the original name “Food for fish” (when I used Blogger “fishfood.blogspot.com” was taken, so I took “foodforfish.blogspot.com”) – but I’m kind of leaning towards “I hate small talk… and food for fish” – just thinking.

I hate small talk… and other random things.

This post isn’t prompted by anything, well I guess it kind of is, but nothing specific, and not b/c of any recent conversation.  One of the reasons I have not been posting as often, is the thought that I need to entertain, write something very interesting, or I have such a passionate thing to write but feel like no one really cares… all of this is just my stupid performance complex, and it doesn’t really matter.  I like to write, I like to talk about all kinds of things, but I don’t like small talk.  I don’t like conversations that have sentences ending with “um yeah”, or “anyways”, or “and so, yeah, how about them Mariners?”

Life means a lot to me, yet I don’t really talk about why so much these days… except with the “safe” people at Church, but so many of “them” are to busy doing something to actually go beyond small talk.  So I end up not being satisfied with many of my conversations… but I don’t blame anyone, a little bit of my self, but I know I’m only human so I don’t beat myself up too badly.  Well enough of this small talk, let’s move forward, ok?