Words for My Enjoyment

Stunning Admission #10

June 11th, 2006

I’m just going to come out and say it.

It’s not like I’m hurting anyone, first of all. That’s the first thing you have to understand before you get all in a huff about today’s stunning admission. It’s something I do for ME and for no one else. It’s something I can’t control.

I have not sought out professional help because I don’t think I need professional help for such a thing. It’s just something I do because I must secretly love to be the controller of all things “conversation.”

Today’s stunning admission? I like to ask “What?” even though I’ve just heard what you said.

Now there are three types of people in this world. There are the first type, no-hearer asker-againers (which is such a lame label but what can I say). These are the people who you’re talking to and somewhere in the middle of the conversation you say something that they barely were able to hear. So what do they do? They say, “What?” You go ahead and repeat what you said and the conversation continues on from that point with no worries.

But I say What? even though I can hear what you just said.

The second type is the person who is afflicted with the strange and hardly-ever researched disease, delayed audiosyntosis which is when you tell them something, they say What?” and then right about the time they’re punctuating the “What” with the question-mark, the words you just said miraculously arrive in their brain and they actually realize and understand what it is that you just said. But just like people with an uncontrollable urge to wet their pants don’t tell you when the warmth is spreading across their nether-regions, the person afflicted with audiosyntosis will not stop you from repeating yourself. They don’t want you to know that they didn’t hear you, then randomly heard you after all that confusing questioning about what you just said.

But I hear you and understand your words with zero delay of comprehension. And yet I still say What?

That brings us to the third type of person in this series of stunning admissions. The type of person who hears what you just said, understands what you just said, then simply because they love to force others to repeat themselves in some kind of conversational power-struggle…they get you to repeat yourself all over again.

Why I do it, I couldn’t even tell you. But I do.

So what kind of person does that make me? A bad person? No. Someone who has no respect for the words of other people? No. Someone who wants the upper hand in conversations? Maybe, but probably no. Someone who likes to say words that are made up of four letters with a question mark at the end? Perhaps, but not 100% sure that it isn’t a “no.” Then what? Then for what insane reason does a person like me ask you to repeat yourself even though I’ve just heard what you said in the first place? For what reason would I force others to waste additional breath on a conversation that probably isn’t that interesting in the first place and probably centers around whether or not robbing a bank is something that two kids from Long Island, NY could get away with, without any training whatsoever in the criminal arts?

I don’t know why I do it.

And that, my friends, is exactly why this falls under the category of “stunning admission.” Just like the mysterious black holes of the Universe, so too does this act of human nature defy all sanity and explanation.

What?

Posted under Stunning Admissions. |