I used to have long conversations with my friend Mark in which I would spout many large thoughts, while waving my hands around my head, and becoming emotional about… everything.

Mark just brought it out in me.

He’d listen so intently, but one day, he really wasn’t keeping up his end of the discussion in the least.

So I asked, “Hey, Marky, what are you thinking about?”

“My coffee just burned my tongue.”

“Ow! Ok. But what before that?”

“Uh… my foot was asleep.”

“Oh… well. You just kept nodding at what I was saying. I didn’t know what you were thinking.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m just listening to you talk. It’s cool. I like how you talk. I don’t need to say anything.”

“Mark, why don’t you tell me if I’m boring you or imposing on you?”

“Hmm…I don’t think I said that. I said I was listening, and that it was cool.”

“But if you have nothing to say, don’t you think that means you’re bored?”

“Whoa, Meg. Get over that. Listening is probably a higher form of interest than babbling back.”

“Am I talking too much?”

“It’s a wonder your parents don’t make you wear a sign that says, ‘Please note: I perceive all comments about myself to actually mean, ‘I SUCK’. Geez.”

“You still didn’t answer.”

Then he threw his scone at my head.

And we resumed the conversation.