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Has Freelancing Addled My Social Life?
It’s getting hard to ignore. I simply cannot make small talk anymore.
Generally I don’t interact with people until later in the day- 3:30 and on. I drop my children off at school in the morning, and go home to put all of my brain and word power into whatever project is at my fingertips. Around 3:00 or 3:30 I head to the school. I do a lot of volunteer work for the school, which means I head over early to speak with teachers, use the copy machine, or pass out some PTO mail.
While standing at the copier the other day, I realized I was having a really hard time coming up with convo with the other people in the room. I realized that it was overwhelming for me to have several people talk to at once. I realized that these people spend 7 hours a day with 30 other people, and are really adept at having 20 different conversations in 2 hours. I simply cannot. I have grown accustomed to 6 hours of quiet (accept for the roar of the net).
This is not good. Yesterday, for example, I met with a client at a coffee shop, and had trouble making small talk and finishing coffee after our business was finished. I think she could tell.
It’s odd. I used to spend 8 hours a day on a cube farm floor with over 200 people. When I worked at MSU I was treated to the most intriguing conversation with PhD students, research assistants, and professors from all corners of the globe. I used to regularly speak with professors at UNAM (Mexico) and Erasmus (Rotterdam). I edited while speaking with a UK publisher on my head set. I watched a student’s slide show of her Indian wedding while faxing contracts to Greece, listening for the one Greek phrase I knew: “push one now to fax”! And I pulled it off, day after day. But somehow, I’ve got to the point where I don’t have the brain capacity by 3:30 to have two conversations while also working the copy machine!
Two weekends ago it was my friend A.’s birthday, and they had a fire and some drinks. That worked out fine, so I think it may be a small talk thing. Or a resistance to multitasking. I’m not sure.
What I do know, though, is that I manipulate words 6 hours a day- and I do it well. So if I need recovery time at the end of the day, so be it. I’d rather put out 100% for my clients and my own works then talk about the weather (I suppose…this post does make me miss working at MSU).
Please, someone, tell me I’m not the only writer who runs out of words by 3:30!
Hi Allena, I hear you! It’s very quiet around here too.
Use the phone. Some of my family and friends know I like to call “to talk”.
Another way to practice the gift of gab is to gab about your hobbies, if you have one; like a craft. But what really works for me is to listen and ask questions of people who are doing something new and different, like their own business, or a new project. Call interesting people and ask questions, or you can always talk about what Oprah is doing! The art of asking questions really opens up the conversation.
Take care,
Joseph in Seattle
Please understand that I’m reading the blog entries backwards. This is why my comments reflect more insight as I go back.
I’m starting to like you more and more. You sound like me in making small talk. I tend to be introspective.