I have spent the last 3 days with my voice dipping in and out of action (punctuated by very aggressive coughing). It sounds a lot worse than it is, which makes it fairly funny, particularly as my job involves quite a lot of talking.

I’m good at talking, as a general rule. In the right context. I’m very good at talking to your nan, and I’m fairly good at talking to people who are more senior than me. I’m good at being ‘bubbly’. The talking I’m best at is thanking people profusely, or apologising a lot for things which are completely beyond my control. Which, for the record, is always genuine. I am just a very apologetic person.

I’m not great at speaking other languages (as previously discussed, at length), but I am good at talking about language. Which is probably a bit confusing. And definitely very nerdy. But I’m quite proud of it, really.

However. I am very very bad at one specific kind of talking, and that is talking to people of roughly my own age in a social context. Particularly in a vaguely romantic context.

Apparently, past me thought this might be conquered by the internet. I might be terrible at talking, but I’m not terrible at writing (dear lord, never read back to the start of this blog if you believe the last phrase). I figured that hiding behind an internet profile might help me talk to more people. And it has, technically.

But the thing is, if you talk to someone long enough on the internet, eventually they might want to meet up with you. My research shows that no amount of talking on the internet prevents awkward silences and staring into drinks in real life. It’s not fun. It’s probably quite fun-ny, and it makes for fairly good anecdotes (there’s another kind of talking I’m good at – laughing at myself) but it’s not fun at the time, it’s just difficult.

I always used to think I was an extrovert, but as I’ve grown up I’ve realised I’m really not. I’m just an outgoing introvert, who turns into an actual introvert the second social interaction is involved. I always thought that being talkative was what made you an extrovert, but recently someone explained that it’s more about where you get your energy from, and I do not get my energy from other people. It takes all my energy away, which is probably why I freeze up so much as soon as I’m around a person I actually want to talk to.

I’m sure that one day I will learn how to do the talking to the people, but for the moment I am going to continue voiceless.

And not only because I cannot shake this ridiculous cold.