[self-demonstrating my point, it appears]

[reenka]

All right, I have a question: why do people apologize for rambling and/or try to be brief, as if more exuberant verbiage would somehow be offensive, at least online??

I was actually thinking about this, and... doesn't it stand to reason that even if you have nothing of interest to say, if you just keep on talking, eventually you'll say something vaguely interesting?? Maybe. If you can make yourself understood and/or aren't insane. I'm guessing.

Maybe this is 'cause we live in the age of brain-numbing small-talk and sound-bytes, where anything that isn't packaged and prescheduled is suspect, I dunno, or maybe that's too cynical and hard on small-talk. Or maybe it's just lame & dorky to waffle about and be indirect, or possibly too 'feminine' and not macho enough for guys especially and/or it gives the impression that the person has a soft brain, so to speak. I mean, I won't argue about the soft brain bit, personally. I always thought direct, blunt people were way cooler than I am, but my point is that it takes skill to be successfully both intelligent and blunt + direct, skill which you don't need to ramble on pointlessly and also skill which you obviously don't have if you're to-the-point but not, in fact, pithy.

Perhaps as a side issue, this whole thing of wanting to appear to be cool which might explain things... I dunno. Why do people even bother? Of course, this probably says more about my apathy than their delusion, as per usual....

Comments

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

(The 'wild claims' thing sounds funny... well, even more funny after reading all the MsScribe wank, but I meant that since I always find the things you say totally reasonable/rational+concise, the idea that the comments here (http://worldserpent.livejournal.com/179542.html) are 'tl;dr' seems like a wild claim. Though it's actually more of a 'wild claim'/exaggeration to -say- it's a wild claim, and now I'll just shut up before I sound even more crazy. *coughs*)

I guess it's just this one time the person actually -did- stop talking after saying they're rambling too much-- and it's happened before (that the person says they're rambling & shuts up). I didn't quite... um... remember that there are some people who like making social gestures (I mean, I'm sure there are, all the must-be-polite!wank people are surely one of them). It's also true that people can continue talking out of intertia... though this depresses me & I try to stop cold when I notice such a thing (usually when only rehashing is going on).

Anyway, I only feel slightly put off if I think the person -does- know me in particular enough to know I -don't- go for the whole conciseness -or- politeness/social-gesture thing by nature-- and, I mean, you really barely have to know me for that. But perhaps I totally overestimate what's obvious to people about me-- I know I do, really :>

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

My nanny wrote that. I don't know what you're talking about Ah, that is just my way of warning people that the post is very long. It's a joke. But really, people tend not to read long posts, although this doesn't have anything to do with whether they're bloated or not. They just will save them for later, and often don't get back to them.

There are a lot of people out there who like making social gestures, I think. Also, people do often talk to those they don't know well, and I see the reason for such social markers there.