Often (always?) I don’t want to talk in liminal spaces
(This was the case last time too but it mostly made me feel bad about myself, whereas this time I’m trying to just accept it as true)
When I’m making a coffee or grabbing a snack, there’s really no desire to say anything, which can make me worry that I’m being antisocial, that I’m unfriendly etc. But I’m trying to just be like “ok yeah no desire to talk, that’s ok”
I don’t like big group meals
I dislike group dinner time where you all sit at a dining table → I felt this way at Life Itself too
It’s partly downstream of my personality & lack of experience (very small family etc)
It’s also partly a feeling I was with in Berlin, that there are yappers and yap-ees (or perhaps, introverts and extroverts, idk) - some people will happily talk a bunch in a big group, some people feel kind of oppressed and diminished in a big group
There’s a default story that everyone eating together at a dining table is connective and good and community-coded etc, but in my experience it’s (to be honest, re: my experience) oppressive, you’re tyrannised by the people who are happy to talk the most, boring, disconnective, etc. There’s a feeling of “if I talk, I’m forcing everyone to listen to me”, there’s a lack of optionality or something
Ofc this could all be nonsensical and downstream of my own issues (very likely), idk what the alternative would be
Imagining alternatives
Assigned seating at smaller tables which are jumbled up each day so you talk to new people → could be much more fruitful and connective than “everyone at big table, the yappers yap, the shy people are quiet”
I’m not interested in talking ~most of the time
Most of the time I just don’t want to talk! It’s weird
I have a bit of a sense that some point soon it’d be good to install a new story/belief re: the value of chatting, yapping, etc. I feel like I don’t have a sense of playfulness and silliness and default to a kind of intense gloomy presence (astrology girlies will say it’s my scorpio rising). E.g. Nihilism slash dissociation at the hippy retreat. But at the same time maybe I don’t need to change anything about this. I’m friendly and engaged in 1:1 contexts, I am valued and liked despite this, etc
Something something I don’t want to be stuck in verbal land
Maybe there’s something here for me like I want to communicate in a vibes-based way, I want to do activities with people, I want it to be safe to be silent when I want to be silent. I want to learn your life story, I want to learn more about what you care about, I don’t want to talk about things that smell like unimportant bullshit
