Let’s talk

I feel that I could carry on a natural conversation and be socially adept in most circumstances, unless I have a sunburn, or indigestion, or I forget to wear a belt and my pants are too loose, or maybe my pants have a bad zipper that tends to unzip itself, or I couldn’t get my hair quite right, or I have an inexplicable zit on my nose, or maybe a nagging feeling that there is smut¹ in my nose, or I haven’t been working out recently, or my voice is monotone, or I haven’t ever read Anna Karenina, or …

So now when you wonder why having a conversation with me can be so surreal/difficult/pathetic, just remember you are conversing with a bundle of irrational neuroses and everything will, if not make sense, meet expectations.

¹ The first definition, as used by Ralph Ellison in Invisible Man.