{"id":3698,"date":"2017-02-23T12:54:53","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T11:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=3698"},"modified":"2018-11-12T06:43:16","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T05:43:16","slug":"tell-me-about-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=3698","title":{"rendered":"Tell Me About Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I’m walking up the steps at school, from the sounds of it, towards a conversation. As I close in, I get the idea that it\u2019s a rather intense discussion. I put my head down: get through these people, no eye contact.<\/p>\n

I turn the corner and there\u2019s a girl. She is clearly shocked at my appearance; she stares at me a bit wide-eyed. I think of jokingly warning her to avoid whatever conversation is happening nearby. It\u2019s then I notice that the voices have stopped.<\/p>\n

The girl runs away down the steps. Fast.<\/p>\n

As I climb I no longer hear the voices. I look around, peel my ears, lean out over the railing a bit to peer up into the higher levels of the stairwell. Nothing. Nobody.<\/p>\n

I am in my office when I realize that the girl was speaking. It takes a moment longer for me to understand that she was speaking to herself. I put all the clues together: her shock, red face, wide eyes, the terror-stricken look, her quick getaway. Then, of course, the facts that we were the only people in the stairwell and that, after she left, not only was I alone, but the voices had stopped.<\/p>\n

I am very quick and sharp.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing. She needn\u2019t have worried so much. Getting caught talking to yourself is an activity in which I am a weekly participant. In the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that, besides this time, I am always the one talking to an audience of Me.<\/p>\n

I am not ashamed, either. This morning I got caught by a neighbor as I verbally went over my lesson plan. A little while later I was given an odd look by a guy as I had an hypothetical discussion with my boss.<\/p>\n

Getting caught talking to oneself was not only a fact of life in my family, but a familial rite of passage. Living in the Galeone household meant hearing a number of voices from all around the house, all in some kind of discussion with its owner. We are a talkative lot, and if nobody is there to hear us, well then we become our own audience.<\/p>\n

I am a huge advocate of talking to oneself. Sometimes I just need to get something off my chest. Other times I need to voice a story or blog idea, talk out a lesson plan, practice an uncomfortable conversation with a friend or colleague. Maybe I want to practice my awful Czech and can’t bear to punish another human with it.\u00a0Additionally, rather than drive a friend nuts with the sheer volume of my chatter, when I talk to myself I exasperate only Moi. Or maybe the cat.<\/p>\n

I am not the only one either. A friend of mine was randomly told by her landlord that if she she would have to pay extra if she had a person living with her (in her one bedroom flat). When she asked why he thought she had a flatmate he told her that he (and the other neighbors) could hear her talking to someone in the flat. She then explained that she was talking to herself. And, though I wasn\u2019t there, I hope she explained it with a strong chin and no shame.<\/p>\n

You non-self talkers might look down on us, but we are better prepared for bad conversations, meetings, discussions; we get things off our chest alone so as not to bother others, and we are most definitely funnier than all of you.<\/p>\n

And even if you don’t think so, we do, and that’s what’s important.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m walking up the steps at school, from the sounds of it, towards a conversation. As I close in, I get the idea that it\u2019s a rather intense discussion. I put my head down: get through these people, no eye contact. I turn the corner and there\u2019s a girl. She is clearly shocked at my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cat-talk.jpg?fit=600%2C519&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-XE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3700,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3698\/revisions\/3700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}