Are you ready for today's rant? It's a personal and, I'll admit, not very charitable view. I boarded a busy 38 this evening and was subjected to a fellow passenger's mind-numbingly boring conversation about her direction in life (downhill, I would imagine), her friends (I was surprised that she could call on so many) and a work project that she is struggling with (too boring to discuss here). At various levels of volume, she talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked. Occasionally, she listened. I savoured those brief moments.
I prayed that her bus stop would come, that the conversation would take an interesting turn, or that her friend on the other end would die of boredom. Unfortunately, I was disappointed on all three counts. Relief came when my own bus stop loomed into sight.
Its odd. We are told that public speaking terrifies most of us, but I don't see that. If you were asked to give a speech to a room full of 40 people about your partner's shortcomings in the bedroom, a recent visit to the hospital, why you hate your job, or the merits of a new shampoo, you would probably say "Are you mad?!" And yet, so many people are happy to do that - and a lot more - on the top deck of a London bus. Does it occur to them that many of us just want to read a book or 'zone out'? Does it occur to them that they are talking, in such lurid detail and often, so loudly, about their private lives?
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