Silence is Golden

People often tell me I'm too quiet. I've always been more of a listener than a talker, probably part of the whole only child syndrome. I'm sure my mother tried to beat into me the premise of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." I'm pretty sure I expanded that in my mind to just "don't say anything."

As a result, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people talk just to fill silence in the room. Just because there is a gap in conversation, doesn't make it an awkward silence. If people are sitting on the couch watching TV, that's not awkward silence. It's only awkward when you try and fill it by reading your alumni newsletter, and making comments about people I don't know like:

"she was a bitch..."
"oh, he was commencement speaker..."
"oh they did win it last year..."
"good, he needs to leave... I don't like him..."

These all came from one of my roommates in the last 15 minutes, so yes I'm annoyed. We did not go to the same college. I'm not looking over her shoulder to see who these people are. Clearly, by not asking for more elaboration, I'm just hoping you'll stop talking...

Similarly, one of the other roommates has two houseguests for a week, while they wait to move into their new apartment. One of them also feels like he has to engage us in conversation just to be polite.

"I don't like sports except for baseball... I don't know how you watch tennis."
"I try to pay attention to college football, but I don't care about anything but the Braves."

These would be perfectly relevant statements, except for one thing. I DIDN'T ASK about any of that stuff. I don't mind you staying in my house, and sleeping on my couch for a week, but there's a reason why I'm hanging out in the other living room from you. I'm keeping my space. I don't walk in to your room and tell you that your shirt looks stupid, don't come in to mine and tell me I shouldn't be watching Roger Federer.

Maybe I should start responding... something like...

"Maybe the dingo ate your baby!"