Rambling

Sometimes, I must admit, I have a tendency to ramble. It's strange, because when you see people rambling, you tend to assume that they're really invested in the conversation, or at least in their own part of the conversation; yet, most of the time when I ramble it's when I'm uninterested in what I'm saying, and am just saying it to fulfill my part of the conversation. I don't really like to make idle small talk, so when people say something, I try to come up with something interesting to say that's related. Sometimes, I just don't have an interesting observation to make. Someone will say "Did you ever notice that Cadbury chocolate is always so much richer and creamier than other brands?" and I'll say "Oh, yeah? No kidding... I, well actually it was only even recently pointed out to me that mass-produced chocolate would be consistent across companies, rather than just brands, you know? Like, that every Nestle bar [it would be much easier for me, at this point, to at least stick to the established Cadbury example, but I'm dedicated to broadening the scope of any discussion I participate in.] would have the same type of chocolate, rather than just every different Aero bar, like Aero Caramel or whatever, having one kind of chocolate, and then every different Crunch bar having another, you know? I haven't had that frame of reference for long enough to really investigate the differences between the major candy companies' chocolate formulations, so I can't really agree or disagree with your assertion that..."

And usually somewhere in there, a voice in the back of my head goes "James! You're rambling!" and I realize what's happening and I try to get quickly to the end of whatever clause I'm currently at in the endless run-on sentence I've got going and somehow salvage the situation so I don't look like I'm really intimidated by a simple conversation with this person. "Whatever you do," calls the voice, "do not say something that calls attention to the fact that you were just rambling." At which point I usually say something like "Blah! Man, got off on a ramble there, huh? I'm sure you're riveted by my fascinating observations about the state of the various candy companies' chocolate formulations..." and off I go, stringing together quips and pointless observations, extending sentences into paragraph form and just generally failing to get to any point worth making.

I think that may get to the heart the appeal of writing to me: as it's a more deliberate process than speaking, you can easily avoid getting in to situations like that.