Then there’s my incessant talking! I loathe this about myself. I wish, I really wish, I would just SHUT UP! But no, in company, I have to talk and talk and talk. I make myself flustered and panicky, headachy and hoarse. I start to lose my voice, the interest and respect of my companions, my friendships, but still I plough on and on.
On the Mongolian Steppe, where I lived for a while, women usually occupied the ger (yurt), the round nucleus of the household. Any visiting women would be absorbed into that community, given a baby to hold, and a part in a good old gossip. Men would squat outside smoking and gazing into the distance in manly silence. They looked askance at my nervous, womanish attempts at conversation.
At work I can now squander whole hours nattering with my colleagues, constantly turning away from the same unfinished email, to add “another thing” to the general discussion, proving, once again, what a waste of a salary, of tax-payers money, I am[1]. If I had any integrity, I’d resign. At least when I was starving myself, I sat in morose silence staring at my computer screen, even if I didn’t get any more work done. It was such a heroic effort just to stay upright and conscious, to stagger in to work, that it felt like an achievement in its own right, and compensated for my complete inefficacy.
Footnotes
[1] Luckily, it’s a very low salary. Don’t “hate on me”.
Middle-aged Male Anorexic 