IMHO - Quit Your Jibber Jabber

There is something I want you to be grateful for having (hopefully) not yet fallen foul of; something your youth and excited exuberance should be keeping at bay just yet. Small talk. That blandest of conversational mortars that we eventually all seem to fall under the impression that we cannot exist without, lest we suffer the agony of silence and uncomfortable pauses. God forbid peace should invade our day. We shudder at the notion of the jabbering bollocks ever ceasing for long enough for us to realize we haven’t actually been saying anything worth remembering or passing on.

Do we even realize we do it, these days? For example, we use the word “Alright” as a question, a greeting, an answer, all at once, without actually asking after each other’s wellbeing in any way that counts.

“Alright?”

“Alright.”

Why bother? What is that, anyway? It seems to be nothing more than a verbalization of the fact we can’t be bothered having a proper conversation, served with a side order of the fear we all have of not speaking to each other at all, even in passing. It’s a pointless use of precious energy and worse yet, a waste of words. What if we run out? What happens when the day comes that we are all suddenly struck mute because we unknowingly exhausted our planet’s linguistic quota? Do you really want your last ever word to be a grunt, barely distinguishable as a word and utterly useless as an expression of anything real?

We leave voicemails that say “I called, call me back” when we could easily leave it to the recipient of the missed call to notice that we tried. Who here wants to kill people who force you to use up your phone credit listening to “Hi, it’s me… ummmm…. Errrrrr.. just calling to say hi. Call me back.”? Who feels, as I do, that a “chat” is a crappy pastime anyway? It’s hardly a jog, is it? What do you want to chat about? Do you have a question? Have you discovered something worth sharing? Do you have a dirty limerick for me, even? Or do you honestly hang on every word of my summary of the recent habits of the weather? Tell me again about the traffic on the way over here, oh please do, for I have never seen traffic before, and this weather of which you speak is new to me. It changes you say? Sometimes unpredictably? Here and elsewhere in the world? Why, this is surely fascinating and we must talk more about it. Perhaps there is some solution that we are yet to discover, one that would clear the roads of cars and the skies of clouds for once and for all?

But then, if we did that, whatever would we talk about?

It’s becoming worse than ever just now, as we have entered a shining new age of bullshit small talk and each become addicted to that most pointless and time-consuming pastime, the “status update”. Internet social networking has provided us with all new, easily employed reasons to make small talk, in the same stroke as giving us the means to make it with thousands of similarly numb-minded dullards at once.

“Angie wishes she wasn’t at work! LOL!”

“Steve loved watching X-Factor and wants David for the win! ROFL!”

“Beverly is suffering from rectal bleeding brought on by decades of heroin abuse! ROFLMAO!”

Okay maybe the last example is a touch more interesting than the other two, but you see what I mean, yes?

Here are two new habits for you to try. Firstly, stop greeting people with “Alright?” in situations where you don’t care and aren’t really asking. Just say nothing or, if that isn’t an option for you, put some bloody effort in and ask properly; “How are you? How’ve you been? How’s your life / your soul / your neck?” However you want to put it, put it properly or just shut up and say nothing. Similarly, if you get “Alright?” as a greeting, just smile and don’t answer. You’re not being rude here; you’re simply giving the non-question the non-response it deserves. Maybe the person non-asking you will get one step closer to realising what an irritant they are and start putting more effort in themselves.

Better yet, go for shock tactics:

“How you doing?”

“My vagina exploded.”

If that doesn’t start a real conversation, there is no hope between these two people and the small talk should naturally come to a close here, for the betterment of all concerned.

Twitter has taken the status update and turned it into the daily essay. All over the globe, millions of people who otherwise would have no forum for their innermost dimwitted thoughts, and thankfully so, are having their every dribble inflicted on the rest of us. For every Stephen Fry, supposedly blessing his willing minions with his wit and razor sharp observations, there are 250,000 blabbering fuckwits taking delight in calling the US president Obama Bin Laden or asking “I can has cheezburger?” Seemingly never-ending hordes of empty-headed knuckle draggers with nothing to say are going ahead and saying it anyway, all over my internets, battering all the fun out of language and making me desperate to get away from you all, so I can be guaranteed some respite from the torrent of waffle, even if only for an afternoon.

I mean honestly, who wants to read the overlong, poorly thought-through ranting of a complete stranger anyway? What could such a person possibly have to say that is worth publishing?

Jon Gardner doesn’t believe you rolled on the floor laughing your ass off, even once.

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