I’ve been talking for quite a few years now. More than forty, I would say. Having had four decades of practice, I would have expected to have mastered the art of conversation by now. Unfortunately, I haven’t.

I’m pretty good at mere talking. I can speak clearly and make myself understood. My first summer job in my high school years was an on-air job at a local radio station. I quickly learned to speak coherently and extemporaneously. I learned how to lose an accent, then how to adopt other accents. None of this is terribly hard. It’s just speech. Computers can do it now.

Conversation is more challenging. There aren’t many rules, but the few that exist are constantly changing. It requires sensitivity, intuition, and above all else, self-editing. Sometimes I think I’m beginning to master it, but then an appalling mistake of some kind reminds me that I need a lot more work.

There are so many pitfalls, and I manage to find most of them. Sometimes I’ll simply go off on a tangent, forcing someone to endure lots of meaningless drivel on some subject that seems interesting to me at the time. It’s usually not terribly interesting to the other person or persons, and since they’re often too polite to interrupt me with something obvious like “SHUT IT, YOU BORE”, I fail to catch the hints and prattle on. At some point, usually when it’s far too late, I’ll realize that I’m even boring myself, and then I get ashamed and fall silent, going from one extreme to the other.

Sometimes I speak before I think. That happens most often in internet chats. This is inexplicable, because in a text chat I’ve got much more time to think about what I’m typing. I’ve even got the chance to read it and re-edit it before I pull the trigger. I just don’t. Of course, regret follows a split second later. Sometimes I spout logic without thinking of the emotional impact of what I’m saying. Sometimes I do the opposite. As often, I offer advice when I’ve not been asked for it. Sometimes I say something that’s meant to be either commiseration or motivation, and it just scares the person or makes the problem worse than it was before I tried to “help”.

Making one of these mistakes always unnerves me, and nervousness is unfortunately a multiplying factor. The mistakes start increasing exponentially. That’s usually when I try to get funny, ignoring the axiom that humor is best left to trained professionals. Like a bad stand-up comic, now and then I manage to say something moderately droll, but usually I just bomb or get heckled, or both.

Face-to-face conversations with people I don’t know are always hard unless the goal of the conversation is sufficiently clear. Talking with a bank teller or a department store clerk is relatively simple — we both know what we’re about and where we’re going, so the uncertainties are minimal. It’s small talk that stymies me. I always seem to pick the worst opening topic, or find myself completely ignorant of the one they’ve chosen. My segues are clumsy and jarring, I use too many conversational “crutches” (trite phrases, overused words), and my timing leaves much to be desired. I misinterpret pauses as openings, and find myself unintentionally interrupting. I either exit a conversation too soon and too abruptly, offending someone, or I fail to exit it and continue until the other person is forced to make an excuse to get me off the phone or out of their face.

I wonder if there’s a course at some college somewhere called “remedial conversation”? I could use that. Maybe I should try Dale Carnegie or one of the others of his ilk. Some work is definitely in order. Meanwhile, remember I’m an untrained amateur, so don’t expect too much.