habla con ella. i read today something to this effect: that only the very young and the very old are at liberty to dwell upon themselves; to "recount their dreams at breakfast" and interrupt discussions with memories that are only tangentially related to the conversation at hand. "the rest of us are expected, rightly, to affect absorption in other people's (lives)."

true isn't it? most people feel a bit bad if they're blabbering on and on about themselves, even if they can't help it. what puzzles me is those people who insist on steering every conversation their way. it's impossible to have conversations with people like this. i'm not talking about one-on-one talks, since in that occasion, it's okay to meander on about yourself at length. but when someone can't discuss anything without interjecting their own bullshit story about "oh yes, i had a friend who owned a cat that was just like that, and he was from nebraska too." who cares?

i once had a conversation with two good friends at a diner. the topic was religion i believe and throughout the whole night two of us kept trying to talk around the third person because he was incapable of saying anything that didn't somehow relate to his direct experience with life/religion. it was incredibly frustrating.

some people completely lack conversation tact and i'm both fascinated and repulsed at the same time.