If he were an actual person and alive, he’ll scoff and vomit

It’s flattering to receive phone calls when you’re in your 20s. In high school, you live for the ringing of the phone. In your 20s, you’re lucky to be getting two in a week. I don’t like having to talk to anyone on the phone because we don’t have a cordless but more importantly, I don’t like talking. That must have been obvious to some friends or just people I know who didn’t use to get the idea that calling me at any time of the day, at any day of the week and be always told that I’m out, with no specific details as to my whereabouts, is a clear enough indication that I Don’t Like To talk.

So now, I almost don’t get any calls. I recently alienated the one person who seems to have the exact opposite feeling about phone conversations so that should mean zero calls for me. Except that there’s a ‘former friend’ who’s relentless in her quest to contact me. I’ve always suspected since college that I’m going to be a lousy conversationalist and I concede that that’s not good and it might be disastrous when I finally develop an ambition that would necessitate conversational skills. Or when I finally develop just about any ambition. I’ve bullshitted my way into interviews and eventually into certain jobs. I told the last group of people that interviewed me that ‘I am an outgoing, happy-go-lucky guy who works great in teams!’ and they believed that, and this is a skill that may not last for ever. It’s an interview answer that’s strictly false. And if I actually worked with the very people who interviewed me, days into my tenure, they’d know that I have effectively deceived them. They’d have no choice but at least they’d get the idea. But this former friend, she’s ruthless. She just can’t take a hint.

I once sent a group e-mail to my college org that basically served as a heads-up that I may not be as talky as expected of a normal person. I don’t flatter myself by claiming abnormality (to give me some sort of character) but I just felt that it’s my duty to let them know. And it didn’t seem corny at the time, but I think I also used to make certain statements that might have echoed certain sentiments of a certain JD Salinger character which is mainly about not ever wanting to speak a lot and that if anybody feels like talking to me, that they’d have to put it in writing, exactly like you would to a deaf-mute. I think it’s in Chapter 25 of that hideous book.

I think I’ve already smeared the reputation of that book and the ideals it’s supposed to represent, mainly by using the surname of the main character, affixing it with -isms and using it as the title of a previous site. I think that those who truly worship JD and that book, think that using Caulfield’s name in vain is sort of an odd approach to professing fondness for that kind of literature. It wasn’t my intention to be embarrassing. I think I’m beyond identifying with literary characters and that the main reason for not wanting very much to talk has more to do with a generally lousy perspective or mere lack of anything to say than it has with wanting to seem cool and (kind of) intelligent by branding yourself a Holden Caulfield incarnate, which I again concede, is kind of stupid. But this not wanting to talk BS, what is it really about?