Rambling and Oversharing

I ramble, a lot.  It was likely evident from the very existence of this blog, nonetheless, it seems that I'm learning this more and more about myself.  I have found that one of my flatmates consistently has something or other she needs to do, likely because I have talked about a subject she is not particularly interested in for too long.  I hadn't really realized this about myself.  Probably because I'm shy.  It takes me a good while before I get to the point with people where I do ramble at them.  I guess when I get to know them better I do, or even if I feel particularly at home, I'll ramble a bit.  Generally it's not too bad, I'll just add a bit of extraneous information to the conversation.  However, there have been a few times when I keep going on and on when people need to leave to go somewhere.  Thinking back this would often happen talking to my housemates last year, when they were about to leave to go somewhere that had time constrains, such as a meal.  I don't often have this problem as much anymore because of my newness to this city and just not having very many friends.

A good few times I've gone on not just a ramble but a full blown over-sharing conversation.  This often happened when I was comfortable in the place I was in and someone asked me how I was doing.  This innocent pleasantry is much more weighted than people give it credit for.  In many ways it's just a way of making small talk and being friendly.  But it is sort of ambiguous how you're supposed to actually respond to it.  Should you say how you are actually feeling, if it isn't fine, good or great?

Well I had a rough time at the beginning of last year and was often asked how I was doing by people I didn't know quite as well.  I responded truthfully to this pleasantry.  I did this not to make people uncomfortable, which I did a few times.  But instead not to lie about my emotional state to others and myself.  I have often done this as I have dealt with depression and a whole lot of fooling myself into thinking I wasn't depressed.  So at the time, it was one of the ways I tried to keep myself accountable.  I don't think most people actually want to know how you're doing when they ask that.  People are generally interested in themselves, their close friends, their relatives and their partners.  In any case on a few of the occasions when I told the truth about how I was actually feeling, people would be so kind as to ask about my particular predicament.  A few of these times I shared a few too many of my troubles with some people who likely did not care very much and had other things they needed to do.  I'll probably try to work on this, I don't like to overshare, I'd rather keep my problems to myself and if I need to talk about them do so with a close friend.

This ended up longer than I intended, how ironic,
Leah