You Want To Let Him In, But You’re Scared

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Small talk is a mission.

You want to tell the person about how you still miss your dad, so much that you still sometimes wake up shivering from a dream where he was smiling, so close but still out of your reach.

You want to tell the person how most of your money gets spent on food and that your idea of therapy is walking around in a stationery shop, because the silent presence of books and moleskin journals and paintbrushes has the power to comfort you after a long and miserable day.

You want to tell them how you love long phone calls and that effort means everything to you and that you suck at goodbyes, that’s why it means the world to you when someone says the first hello, calling first, texting first without being told.

You want late night conversations and you want to tell them you’re an old school romantic with a battered heart and the tendency to simply start crying without warning, sometimes because you are sad but most times because you are unable to contain the flooding of emotion that fills you every time you are happy, angry or afraid.

You want to tell them all this, you really do. You want to be honest and open and vulnerable hold nothing back. You want to talk about all the things you managed to survive and all the love you’re capable of.

You want all that, but you remember you’re not there yet. Before all that, comes the small talk.

But how do you tell them you weren’t built for small talk?