Strange

Often, when people hear me speaking, I get the decided impression that they are not understanding what I am saying. Well, I mean, they understand what I am saying, just not what I am talking about. I can ramble on and on about things which many people don't seem to understand and fewer still would actually care about. I know a lot of things, and I'm interested in strange things. I like biology and brain cells and hormones and neurotransmitters and nutrition and drugs and cellular respiration, and I often make the mistake of talking about these things, assuming that other people understand and care about these things too. I'm also interested in languages and grammar and writing and speaking properly. The way the structure of a language reflects on the culture in which it is used fascinates me. I forget that other people don't really find this at all interesting. I like literature and alliteration and poetry and style, and I love to read. I've read more books than many of the people I know. I've found that, on average, most of the people I know don't really care to compare the styles of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien (outside of C.S. Lewis class) or discuss The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or The Bodysnatchers by Robert Louis Stevenson. Hardly anyone cares at all about how dead Jacob Marley was, and very few of the people I know really think that the bit about the doornail and the coffin nail is really all that funny. I think it's hilarious. I like philosophy and theology; though I hardly know anything about them, it seems the things I do know are sufficient to bore people to sleep.

Okay, so I exaggerate a little. I've never had anyone fall asleep while I was talking to them - that I'm aware of. I think my main problem is not really that other people don't care about these things; it'd be very unfair to say that no one cares about these things or laughs at the bit about the coffin nail - I'm sure that there are plenty of people with whom I interact every single day who were as creeped out by The Bodysnatchers as I was. It's just that (1) I am not around the people that do care at the same time that I am thinking about such things, and (2) when I am (or am not), I just say what I'm thinking without first finding out by some means whether the other person is even remotely interested in the subject. Then, I often just jump into the topic assuming that they know something of what I am talking about. Like C.S. Lewis, instead if asking someone if they've read anything by a certain poet, I'll ask them which of his poems is their favorite. I think I just have a hard tine conceiving that other people may not be interested in the same things as me or have had the same opportunities. I understand that in theory, but as soon as I start speaking about something as interesting as enzymes, I forget it. I am also very impulsive. Sometimes, the very moment a thought enters my head, it comes out my mouth. I never know when a question such as "Did you know that too much vitamin A in its pure form can kill you but high levels of beta carotene is perfectly alright?" or "What do you think about Zoroastrianism?" may come spewing out of my mouth.

This happens often in conversation where the other person is talking about something completely different. They'll be talking about algebra, which reminds me of my algebra instructor from Butler and how he said, "I know that for some people, algebra is like what French was for me," which will remind me that I had thought about going to France this summer - Paris or Bordeaux? - and Paris reminds me of Les Miserables, so I'll ask if they've seen it. This all happens in a split second, of course, so the conversation actually goes like this:
Other: "Man, I have so much algebra homework."
Me: "I took that class at Butler. Have you ever seen Les Miserables? On stage, I mean. Not the movie."

Sometimes, my "tactful" acknowledgment-of-what-you-just-said sentence isn't even there. So the conversation will look like this:
Other: "Man, I have so much algebra homework."
Me: "Les Mis is my favorite musical. Have you seen it?"

Sometimes, I can take a cue that they're not interested, and sometimes, I notice it and ignore it to avoid the awkward silences and stares that follow my interjections. Sometimes, I don't notice at all. "The cool thing about beta carotene is that it is also a coloring agent. It makes stuff orange and yellow. If you eat a ton of it, you'll actually turn orange. But not very much because you'd have to eat a whole ton, and your body is pretty efficient at cleaning out unneeded things. And if you do turn orange, it's not permanent, of course. It's just like babies with jaundice. They don't stay yellow forever. I bet the Oompa Loompas' diet is high in beta carotene. . . ."

I think the most disappointing thing is just that sometimes I get really excited about an idea, and no one really gets it. When I was a teenager, I traveled with some friends to pick up a mutual friend on her return from a trip to Russia. On the way back, I suddenly understood or wondered something about the nature of love and its different manifest types. I voiced my idea out loud, doing my best to explain it well. They didn't get it. I tried again. One of my friends said it was too complicated and started joking about something else with one of the other girls. The woman which was driving us said that my thought had been too abstract for them. She said it kindly, but I was crushed.

In the end, I just don't talk much to anyone. I want to, but it gets awkward, and then I feel weird and separate.
But I'll get the hang of it someday.

Speaking of hang. . . check this out!