I don’t feel so bad about laying off to my family.[1] I’m forced to have meals with them so Jo can check what I’m eating. I like to make conversation by regaling them with some interesting story I’ve read in the newspaper or a book. They are safely neutral topics.
Meggie won’t have any of it.[2] As I start, she’ll cut in and say, “I don’t want this. I don’t want one of your stories. I want talking – conversation. Talking is good.” Of course, I can see the justice in this comment, but I still find it hurtful. I subside back into my shell muttering, “But that’s what I do; that’s what I am.”
- Footnotes:
[1] Family (noun, count.): a group of people you can constantly bore, irritate and be nasty to, without being abandoned; a connection you can’t quite break, no matter how much you twist it; a bunch of people you can’t get rid of.
[2] Children (noun, pl.): family members with the right to be rude, insulting and neglectful.
Middle-aged Male Anorexic 