Everyone Is Talking To Themselves

So let me be the first to say that this isn't a blanket statement about all of mankind. Or about my generation (anyone see Time, recently? Twixters! Yikes!). Or, perhaps most importantly, about you. That said, let me hold court on a little something I like to call EITTT.

{sidebar: anyone ever notice that the little phrase "That Said" can clear the way to say anything you want, particularly something that is in complete contradiction to the former statement? It's complete nonsense (or poppycock, if you'd rather)! "Your honor, OJ is guilty!...That said, the glove does not fit so you must acquit." Silliness!}

So EITTT, the Everyone Is Talking To Themselves Theory, says that our means of communication is geared towards collecting information to help us each make sense of our own lives. When we converse with others, our primary goal is to assemble the various puzzle pieces of our jumbled sense of who we are and how we fit into the world. I think it goes without saying that most of us are better at blabbing than we are at listening and processing what we hear. Have you ever heard of active listening? It's an actual learned (pronounced learn-Ed, natch) approach to listening -- showing that you are paying attention, providing visual and verbal cues that the speaker isn't wasting his or her breath. So, I ask, why do we need to practice listening? Well, I answer myself (and appropriately so, you shall soon discover), it's because we'd rather talk about ourselves as we try to solve the greatest whodunit of all - our lives.

Do it yourself experiment! (try this at home kids)
1. Strike up a conversation with someone you know. (if you choose a stranger, he or she will feel pressured to engage in polite conversation, which is not "real" conversation)
2. Count the times the person discusses something about themselves.
3. Count the times the person inquires about your life.
4. Count the times the person will actually ask follow up questions about what you say about your life.

Hypothesis (and no doubt fact): The person is bound to cover far more topics/info about him or herself than he will inquire about yours. For even more stark numbers, compare qty of topics covered from his/her life to qty of follow-up topics from your life. See? Your role in the conversation was the catalyst. After that, the conversation is good to go, with or without you. See... Psychology 2 did teach me how to conduct scientifically meaningful experiments. See, I knew those classes weren't a waste of sleep.

Counterargument: Well if the "mark" (or victim of this experiment) is so entranced with discussing things through the lens of his/her life, then from the experimenter's perspective, the experimenter is learning a lot about the other person!

Counter-Hypothesis (aka Booyah Take That Explanation): In this controlled environment, yes, the sides are unequal. But that is because one side is intentionally feeding the other side self-indulgent questions. In the real world, both sides would be "trying to get theirs" (theirs = their piece of psychoanalysis through the vehicle of casual communication).

Such scenarios typically play out like this:

Me: Hello, how are you?
Friendcentricfriend: Pretty good. I did X, Y, Z ...and A, B, C .. + 1,2,3.
Me: Cool. (do I get a volley?)
FcF: Oh did I tell you I did A1, B1, and C1 too?
Me: No way, tell me about etc.!
FcF: etc, etc, and etc.
Me: Niiice. (that's it...if I get a volley, I am running with it)
FcF: ...and that's about it about etc... So, how are you?
Me: I am pretty good. (brain races, tries to queue up interesting tidbit worth discussing/evaluating during the public psychoanalysis). I ate at the new In N Out. That was good. (racing racing!) Do I look fat? Eating those burgers always make me feel fat.
FcF: Oh, sorry, what did you say? I was thinking about my life again.

That, my friends, is EITTT in full effect. If you strip out the two sides of the conversations and either side can stand on its own as a conversation, then you know EITTT is in da house.

Not everyone suffers from me-syndrome. These are the askers in the world. They help keep conversations going and unearth nuggets of info about people that enrich our mutual education. It is typical that askers don't say much about their own lives -- unless confronted with another asker. When that happens, a fierce ping pong match of you first - no, you first - no, i insist, you first politeness ensues where each tries to get the other to talk first. It's like being at a four-way stop with people who forgot who's turn it is to go.

But anyway, that said, EITTT doesn't always apply to all of mankind, my generation, or, most importantly, you. Just ask yourself how much you know about others... and how much they know about you.