Conversation

I just had a lovely breakfast in town with my daughter. She's gone on to run some errands but I decided to stay and get some writing done since the weather is a perfect 70 degrees with a cool breeze and there is an empty table to sit at right in front of the cafe. 

I'm sitting next to two women having a conversation. No, I take that back. It's more of a Ted Talk with one spectator and me eavesdropping on the side. I'm wondering when the woman talking will realize that she has been consuming the conversation for the last 30 mins straight with no input from her companion. She hasn't even paused enough for the other woman to interject with a "hmm". To make this coffee catch-up even more irritating yet entertaining... the woman doing all the talking is a therapist by trade. I can't imagine paying to hear her do all the talking for 55 mins.

Her volume is not reserved for her tablemate alone. She is putting on quite the show for all passersby on the street. Braggart doesn't come close to expressing the way this woman is talking about herself. She is so smart, so caring, so successful, so wonderful, so patient, so worldly, so compassionate, so understanding, so accepting, so wealthy, so experienced, so graceful, so talented, so funny, so attractive, and by in large, the best person she knows because she has fought hard against her white upper class upbringing and the perfect picture of the American privileged family, to get to this vantage point. 

Hold on! She's pausing to ask her companion a question. Unfortunately, the reply was a half beat too late for her taste so she decided that she would assume what the answer would be and has begun to sarcastically respond to her own assumption putting her friend on the defense for something she hasn't said in the first place. Thankfully for the woman enduring this meeting, "the talker" has reworked the flow back to her and her relentless barrage of blather continues.

In my youth, I might have turned to this table and said something like "you are talking too much" or "if you're going to talk so loudly at least make your conversation interesting" or "SHUUUT UUUP!" But I'm older now and so I'd rather blog about it, bringing you the reader, in on the story instead of hogging all the fun for myself.

What's happening next to me is theatre, but it is also a learning experience. It is a reminder to engage with the one you're with and not talk at them. To curb your self aggrandizing and remain humble in all things. To gauge the responses of those around you and adjust yourself accordingly. To realize when you are being a jabbering blowhard.

They are wrapping up their "conversation". Not because it has come to a natural conclusion, but because the talker has an appointment with her next prisoner. I am breathing a sign of relief for the woman who has had to endure the last nearly hour of this woman's company. I want to give her a knowing glance and smile for her tremendous patience and tact. I won't but I want to. 

"I love talking with you; I always learn something new about you," said the talker to the listener as she got up from her seat. I'm confused; what could she have possibly learned when she never spoke a word. But then I think that perhaps it's less about what she's learned and more about what she's discovered--someone who will listen to her talk endlessly without the hassle of interruption. I fully expect to see them in town again, one talking, one not. I hope I have my laptop with me.