*You don’t have to read this post, its just something I want to write for myself.

I just can’t, at all. Ive grown up with a lack of confidence for a long while, and my late dad often put me into activities that were possibly meant to improve that, but ended up having  the opposite effect. I was in the scouts, which I hated, I didn’t enjoy the activities which meant I didn’t really involve myself with others, I also did Karate, which was even more unpleasant an activity, and whilst its championed as a great confidence builder it only sought to weaken mine further. Much of my younger years were spent wandering alone about the grounds, a lot of my life has been wandering with groups of people but not really a part of that group.

Thus I don’t have much social experience, and its hard to get any. Because you cant really be taught social skills, its practically all an art, not a science (which I wish it was). My lack of confidence means that even though I have a good vocabulary and can use words with precision it all goes to pieces in regular conversation with normal (non-geeky) people. I cant flow with conversation well, if I want to say anything meaningful I need to think for a while about a particular anecdote, because if I don’t spend time on it it wont come out properly, the downside is that by the time Ive formulated that anecdote the groups conversation has moved on, and my work is for naught. So i sit listening, making barely a sound, wishing that instead of being at a Christmas dinner I was with a mate, playing a good game with each other, messaging on steam and generally having a good time. When I do have the confidence to try to interject my mind is working faster than my mouth can process it, and I speak fast and to others it just comes out garbled, what is worse is that I hear myself talking fine. I kind of imagine this must be how it must feel to have just learnt English and to tell a joke in what you think is the accurate way, then hear no laughter.

Normal conversation is the hardest thing I know, I understand the storyline to ‘The Matrix’ yet I fall to pieces when I talk to others. My problem is that I have only a theory of how to hold a conversation, based on listening to others, but I don’t really get it. So far as I know all conversations start with the repeated “Hi, how are you” (or variants). This is a question so pointless as every time its asked the answer is always positive, you have to be in real trouble to say anything else, and even then you put a positive flick on it. Me and my Friend usually just skip to the TF2/WoW talk at the instant we meet up, rather than ask this needless question. The next bit usually goes badly, I realise I have nothing that interests the two of us to say, the conversation just stops, then I get bored, walk away and raid the fridge

This I suppose is why I want to blog, it gives me a chance to express my thoughts in a way that doesn’t require conversation. I have plenty of time to think about what I write, and I’m better at typing than speaking (yes really). There’s so much I would have to learn or practice or change to become anywhere near decent at speaking to most others that I genuinely believe Ill probably be bad at talking for all my life. So on that slightly depressing note, Peter out.