EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE: It’s good to talk — but not always

Obviously, the mental health arguments regarding talking through and sharing problems, giving someone who may otherwise be lonely a call, are sound. I understand that. But sometimes, don’t you just feel talked out?

Maybe sharing the words around more equally would be a good idea.

It’s a pace of life problem. That’s my excuse.

You’re on your way to work, late for a meeting or whatever and you spot someone you vaguely know in the distance. Someone who might take up a vital ten minutes of your time. So you take a 15-minute detour to avoid them in the hope they don’t spot you suddenly scooting off (this is a big problem if you live in a village and there’s a local pain in the backside who just hangs around waiting to harass busy people).

You go into a pub and the one other person in there attempts to engage you in conversation. The warning signs immediately flash and you — if you’re not rude enough to just leave — knock your drink back double quick and hasten your departure.

How do you know though that your reaction isn’t the one which sends the other person over the edge? On the other hand, if you wade into a full-on chat it might be you who ends up on the precipice.

Life is all about those sorts of calls — or avoiding them if the caller ID on your phone doesn’t fill you with the desire for conversation.

“Nice to talk to you,” a woman on a train said, 30 minutes or so after I had seen her scanning the seat numbers — please don’t sit by me, please don’t sit by me — until the one on her ticket matched that next to me. Damn, I thought, which was kinder than my internal thought when she did attempt to chat.

“Really good to talk to you,” said another woman on the next leg of the journey about an hour after she had probably had the same reaction as I approached the vacant seat next to her — or not if she was nicer than me, which is highly likely.

Both of these women were pleasant and the conversations way more interesting than I had imagined.

I felt bad for pre-judging them, but the likelihood of me reacting more positively to the approach of anyone else on that train or any other form of transport or, indeed, in any walk of life, would have been remote.

It’s strange really, because as a youngster I didn’t really engage in conversation because I was shy and as the years went by the reason changed to me not liking many people.

Even that’s not strictly true. About ten per cent of people are great, around 20 per cent all right, 40 per cent just about tolerable and the other 30 absolute *******.

Ricky Gervais’s character Tony in the excellent After Life hates everybody but eventually reaches the “it’s nice to talk” conclusion after largely having avoided doing so following the death of his wife and questioning the point of being alive.

He had a good reason, I suppose, though I must be becoming more tolerant as I can (just about) understand both sides of the argument.

I just don’t want to take part in the discussion.