Sometimes I feel like I am an unclear communicator when speaking in person. Communication struggles… at least as far as I can tell from the confused looks and laughing on the receiving end of my barely parsed information.

Amusing? yes.

De-musing. yes, also that. ha.

Though there are times when the connection just flows and an easy manner found.

In the most frustrating times I’ll try to say something but end up mumbling, jumbling, and repeating myself a few times before I can relate something that would seem relatively simple. My stuttering worsens as the day goes on. Tired brains are hard to control; and tired tongues combined? worse.

Who knew?

I’ll be the old one in the nursing home chattering away to anyone who will bother to feign comprehension.

Okok. Maybe I exaggerate a tad.

But I do have some things to work on….

I interrupt, jump to conclusions, and try to finish people’s sentences without so much as a by your leave from my brain (well, maybe there’s something? but most times I hear nothing of the sort).

Permission? Space in the conversation?

Who needs it? I just talk.

Yup it’s bad. Around people I’m comfortable with at least. The poor dears. Some handle it well. Some probably wish for a break or don’t even notice.

Who knows.

But to me it can be a bit frustrating.
I love communication.
I love languages.
I love language itself.
And fluidity
Clarity and
Beauty.

CAn’t we all talk like poets, please? At least the more down to earth ones?

It’s hard to accept as an English major that I just kinda suck at communicating sometimes.

At least I’m not an orator.

I’m not quite sure how to get better.

I’d like to be the person who can keep still long enough to form a coherent thought…maybe even poignant or insightful.
I’d like to throw out that quick and witty comment but not have it come back and haunt me later for lack of forethought.

I think I mostly write like I talk (or maybe I write like I would talk if given the option to edit my speech bubbles :) ), but there is more time for thoughts to form and words to take their specific shapes.
Maybe that’s why I like to write.

No faces waiting expectantly to respond to your premature thoughts. No unsettling interruptions to make you lose your train of thought or to change the subject before thoughts are well-formed, not to mention delivered.
I can edit as I want. I can cut out the unnecessary and rewrite the sentences lacking clarity.

If I wish.
Thought mostly I don’t. (I often just post as is and hope I’ll improve over time without the effort of glamorizing the mundane..yes, I’m not sorry. We’ll wait to see how that works out for me)
There is more control over your audience’s perception of your intelligence and what have you assumptions they could make about your worth as a person based on a post about your child’s ability to sleep/eat/dirty diapers.
In those face to face encounters (especially with those who don’t know you in your online life) it seems those measures are left to the wind, the state of the brain at the moment, and the energy left in the brain to elicit the sentences with clear diction. There are so many factors involved, especially when your audience is less familiar to you and you to them.

It is interesting,
This communication thing.

Perhaps I’ll insert a pause here and there to aid my processing. Spend a moment in thought before responding.
Who knows?
I’ll keep on chattering, yes, but I’d also like to improve a little.

~~~~~~

Does anyone consciously employ different methods for speaking clearly in everyday life? what are they?