Splurge

so you’re talk­ing and I’m listen­ing because listen­ing is what I do but to be hon­est I’m not really listen­ing because I’m tired of listen­ing in just the same way that you’re tired of talk­ing and any­way you’re not really talk­ing about what you want to talk about and if you were talk­ing about what you really want to talk about then I would be listen­ing but as it is I’m not really listen­ing so I think the end res­ult is that neither of us really knows what the other is think­ing as we talk and we listen and we listen and we talk and we avoid eye con­tact well I avoid eye con­tact because avoid­ance of all eye con­tact is what I do and you avoid eye con­tact because it’s one of those foibles that you can’t help pick­ing up dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion it’s a con­ver­sa­tion I sup­pose but it’s not an exchange of views because I don’t think we’re really exchan­ging any­thing except hollowed-out phrases and blasts of hot air are we oh wait a minute I know I’ve just thought of some­thing I wanted to tell you it was really sig­ni­fic­ant some­thing I dreamt about now I feel fool­ish shouldn’t talk about dreams oh dear never mind I’ll stop that and move on to some­thing less pro­found and some­thing less mean­ing­ful have you heard the gos­sip you say and I reply that I haven’t I never hear any gos­sip in my corner next to my wall is that true I wouldn’t have believed it of her but then I don’t really know her well I do know her but you keep telling me I don’t like it’s some sort of com­pet­i­tion because of course I don’t know any­one like you know every­one except you I know you I know you sur­pris­ingly well because I occa­sion­ally do man­age a sneaky bit of eye con­tact when my nerves allow me to gaze upon your pres­ence and when they do I see what you’re think­ing and how you’re react­ing and you’re really very bad at mak­ing your body lan­guage lie about what’s on your mind but again let’s change the sub­ject again because that’s too close to the sub­jects we used to dis­cuss so how’s life how’s things how’s career how’s house how’s home how’s fam­ily how’s this how’s that how’s the other oh you know noth­ing changes everything changes while stay­ing the same doesn’t it and it’s so dif­fer­ent from five years ago although I think we had this same con­ver­sa­tion five years and four years and three and two and one year ago time flies when you’re hav­ing fun are you hav­ing fun oh no ques­tion about it I think although I won’t elab­or­ate no I don’t think I’ll go into excru­ci­at­ing detail just keep it glib it’s all up and down and round and round and speak­ing in non­sensical plat­it­udes now just to avoid just to avoid just to avoid touch­ing the raw nerves and twist­ing the emo­tional knife the art of embar­rass­ment the art of empty ges­tures the art of words and non-words the art of you don’t know what you’re talk­ing about but you will seize your abso­lute right to say it because this is the art of some­thing sorry I’ve lost my train of some­thing or other oh yes thought I remem­ber now this is the art of con­ver­sa­tion full stop pause are you sure yes that’s all full stop