I remember writing a text about this right after I had started studying geography. The new studies meant meeting alot of new people and having alot of those potentially awkward conversations when you try to figure out if this person is someone that you could get along with for the next three years. Quite a few of those people were older than me, and talking to them I always felt so self-conscious. They seemed so relxed and sure of themselves and only talked of relevant things such as the previous lecture or pop culture, while I always ended up blurting out some or other story about myself when I got the feeling that it was my turn to add to the conversation.
I realized that I always related things to myself and my experiences. For me, talking about things as something abstract, not part of me, was almost impossible. And realizing this felt awful, because I didn’t want to be such an egocentric person. I wanted to be cool and detached, just like my classmates. They were mature, while I was still stuck in some late adolescence.
But this gave me a new thought, the thing that I later wrote that text about. Maybe my self-centered conversation skills were part of my age? At 21 I was still defining myself, trying to find that place in the world where I belonged. Maybe it wasn’t that strange that I compared the things that I was confronted with with the person that I was trying to become. That was just a way of getting to know myself. My older classmates on the other hand were several years ahead of me and had left that self-centered period behind them. I envied them.
Later that fall I went to Oxford with my choir. We were to sing two concerts there. I was far younger than anyone else in that choir and one of the singers that I liked talking to the most was a man who was a bit older than 60. He had somehow found my blog and used to read it sometimes and then comment the things I had written at the next choir practice. During the first evening in Oxford we ate together at a resturant and he said that he still refered to himself in most things, and this lead into a conversation at the table. Our pianist didn’t agree with me about that age thing and said: “I mostly talk about myself too, but I also find the people that are willing to tell things about themselves are the most interesting to listen to. It’s about sharing. All that detachment is just boring.”
And really, she was absolutely right. It’s when we get personal that things start to matter, when we start to feel. But somehow, for me this general notion doesn’t seem to apply to me, but only other people. Because at 24, most of my conversations still seem to end up being about me and afterwards I get so self-conscious and think that the people I have been talking to probably think that I’m just extremely boring. But I can’t stop myself. I seem to have an endless need to discuss myself and my life.
That’s the main reason why I have a blog like this. Here I can discuss whatever I want, and since I haven’t asked anyone to read it, no one has the right to complain about the topics that I choose. The few readers that I do have, have found it on their own and they can always choose not to come back.
This is for the good of the people that I meet. It’s an attemt to make my conversations less self-centered. Because in real life, I still want to seem cool.
Katja Malmborg 