Small Talk

Small talk is all code.

By asking about the weather, schools, jobs etc. we can determine everything we need to know about a person. For example, imagine you go for a cup of coffee or something and there's a queue. As you're waiting in line, you strike up a conversation with another caffeine enthusiast. You can't make the usual jokes or use the usual slang and tone you would with friends and family, so you adopt a more soothing and a more generally acceptable version of yourself.

This is Step 1: Assimilation

Step 2: Research begins at the actual interrogation. "Where are you from?/what do you do for a living?/What's your blood type?/At what exact time of the day will you be home alone?". The usual routine.
Their answers reveal the darkest recesses of their mysterious and often terrifying personalities. "It's windy out today isn't it?" you'll say.
"I held a wedding ceremony for my cat and its favourite scratching post this morning. I can't wait until the kittens are born" they'll reply.

Step 3: Reaction Is where you decide whether or not, as a result of your attempts at small talk you can continue the conversation and potentially make a new friend or quietly and subtly dissuade them from talking to you, pay for your coffee (or not, I'm not a cop) and leave knowing you might have just escaped from the clutches of a serial killer.

Alternatively, you might have made them realise they're going to die alone and thus forced them to take out their pain, abandonment and subsequent aggression on the world, birthing a mad man of untold potential into society.

This must be why I don't have any friends. Too many serial killers about. Do I put out some kind of mass murderer victim vibe?

Ever since I was really young, I always loved it when you were in class and you were divided up into groups to do a project or something. Everyone would groan because they didn't get to pick their groups they could stuff with their friends. I would be disappointed as well, at least ostensibly. But really I was excited that I would get to work with someone that I usually didn't speak to so i could make a new friend.

That makes me sound horribly lonely and friendless. I wasn't and am not today, I swear (*sob*). I just enjoy making new friends. I'm good at it too. But unfortunately I have an intense hatred of small talk. I'm what you might call an acquired taste. I get a little uncomfortable when I meet a new person because I don't really know what to say. I just open my mouth and words I hadn't planned to say come crashing out like a tsunami of awkwardness and bad jokes.

Usually I say the bare minimum and get straight to the point. "Where do you go to school?" "Stirling" ...*silence*. When I realise I'm socially obliged to say something else to fill this void, I make a joke that is either terrible, unrelated or simply has no basis in reality.
It gets worse when they ask about my course, which is Psychology by the way. They ooh and aah in all the appropriate places and ask what I hope to do with that.

As it turns out vague questions about my goals in life are my kryptonite. That and light to moderate pain.

Yet when they are forced to be around me for a length of time they come to see that I am likable (sometimes),charming (eventually) and funny (no). This is why I will be just fine in halls come September.

These people will have to come to like me.

They have no choice...

Anti-Explanation

Oh hi there. I did just post a while ago and not mention the fact I didn't write anything for a year didn't I?
What has it been? 5...6...1 year 31 weeks and 6 days?

Time's just flown hasn't it?

So what's happened in all this time? What changes have there been in my day to day life, in my ongoing existence on this planet, in my very core and fundamental beliefs?

...not much.

In all honesty I can't really remember. It's all a bit of a blur. Of course you can't take my word for it. My memory of this morning is a bit of a blur. There was definitely cereal involved...or was that toast? Did I have breakfast?

Sidetracked. Some things never change.

Myself and 10 of my friends went on holiday to - shock horror- Magalluf. Can you believe it? 11 teenage boys threw a dart at a globe and managed to hit the most popular destination spot for those who find themselves in the limbo that is the year between secondary education and university. A place where morals and supervision go to die. What are the odds?

But don't let that fool you. We were responsible mature adults who looked out for each other and didn't cause a stir to the local populace...mostly.

We stole tables from various hotel rooms to give us one large one, the centre of which was reserved for our salad bowl which we periodically filled with random assortments of alcoholic beverages as per the rules of the glorious game "Kings" or as it's also known "Ring of Fire"

This game actually led to the expansion of my vocabulary with words such as "chunder", "chundering dragon" and "oh my god please help me my insides are on fire I'm going to die" making new and interesting additions to my dictionary.

Now, the law and my pride prevents me from discussing any further details of the trip. Any enquiries you have can be addressed to my lawyer who will swiftly use many technical phrases and legal jargon to confuse and disarm you with the ultimate message being "shut up and go away".

What else...oh yes

ALL OF MY FRIENDS HAVE LEFT ME

Well okay that's not strictly true. They went to university. Most of them are in Belfast, some went to Derry, hell some of them are still in Ballymena. But it leaves me with little chance to distribute my dangerous habit. A habit that is detrimental to both myself and those around me. A habit that could lead me to an early grave. Something I got hooked on when I was 15. One day everything was normal and then BOOM. Addiction hit me like a freight train.

When I was fifteen years old I got addicted to talking. Not just talking mind you. But producing unhealthy amounts of bull shit and terrible jokes that proved to be detrimental to my health and the patience of those around me.

I like to think I'm pretty good at it too. But of course that mightn't be true. It could be my ego. Or my penchant for bullshitting. Or it could be my ego AND my penchant for bullshitting teaming up in a super villain-esque tag team to rid the world of any remnants of my virtuous nature still in existence.

This gift of the gab will eventually cause everyone around me to leave. Oh they'll say they tried to help.

They'll say

"how can we help someone who doesn't want to be helped?"

They'll say

 "James for the last time you aren't funny. You're annoying"

 To which I will reply

"For god's sake I made one pun about Thursday and thirsty! Put the knife away!"

My mother has quite the temper.

I will bear this burden until the end of my days. And by "burden" I mean "blessing". And by "end of my days" I mean until September when I will move to Scotland for university and meet new people who's patience meters have not been tainted and forever damaged simply by being in my presence.

It's fun to bother people.

127 Days

I want to take a moment right now to talk to you about Father Time. Because I have nothing better to do and a lot of time to do it in.

Which is all his fault.

For the seven years I attended secondary school I have wished and begged and pled for more time - more time to finish assignments, more time to study for exams, more time to catch up on my reading and of course more time to sleep my lazy ass back to enthusiasm.

And that crotchety, night-shirt wearing paedophile beat me in the face with his "be careful what you wish for" clock and cursed me to live at home for another year while all my friends get to move on to university.

I have to wait an agonising one hundred and twenty seven days until I can finally experience true independence, when I will leave the country and make a fantastic plethora of mistakes that will haunt me for years to come in ways I can't yet fathom.

It's going to be amazing. But there is still this massive wait before I get to travel off to unseen lands. And by unseen lands, I mean Scotland. Which I suppose isn't exactly unseen. I mean on a good day you can see Scotland off the coast of Ireland (where I live), which is only like a 12 mile gap. But there's all that water in between. So my family can't get to me. Thank sweet Christ for the Irish Sea.

Now I should maybe preface what I'm about to say with the fact that I love my family. I really do. But I've spent a lot of time with them already in my life and I firmly believe that a person isn't supposed to spend more than 18 consecutive years with their families or their primal instincts will force them to tear each other apart. I don't want to fight my family! There are five of them and I know I could take at least four of them. My dad has a bad hip and my mum and two of my sisters aren't quite blessed in the muscles department.

The main problem would be my second oldest sister, Eimhear. She has rage on her side. Plus she does sports! How am I supposed to compete with that? She would kick the ever loving crap out of me, and my religion prohibits my crap being outside of me in any other fashion than pure and simple defecation in one of Armitage Shanks pristine whites.

So obviously I can't stay with the family too much longer, but I don't have much of a choice. I've had to busy myself. I could get in shape! I could learn a language! I could get a jump on my Psychology course for next year and do some independent learning!

Because, as a great man once said:

When life gives you lemons, be glad it was just lemons and your parents weren't mugged and killed in an alley way

- Bruce Wayne 

As I write this I am surrounded by various objects that represent the different hobbies or interests I've adopted over the last year in order to kill time. I see the weights I bought to get into shape, which I then put down when I realised weights are heavy. I see the psychology text book I bought because I thought it was really interesting when I flicked through it in the shop and have since not opened. I see stacks of books waiting to be read which I haven't since I discovered the joy of Pirate Bay and Game of Thrones.

I want to kill time, I really do. But he's a tough bastard and I've been saving my energy for the post-apocalyptic wasteland science fiction novels and movies have assured me is bound to happen sooner or later

"But James" I hear you say "why don't you just get a goddamn job and quit whining". Well aren't you just a lovely little thing. You see, I do have a job. I stock shelves in a budget supermarket type place. I'm pretty sure my official job title is "stock bitch". So, unsurprisingly, like 70% of the world, I hate my job and thus time is eternal during my shift.

Another way Father Time has screwed me over.

But I guess there's not much I can do but gnaw off my arm trapped between the rocks of time and make a movie about it. The arm in this metaphor being my laziness, the rocks of time being the time I have to wait to leave this godforsaken hell hole and the movie being...I don't know, a colourful spin on my "tragedy" which I can use to make money?

I'm bad at writing...