My buddy, Dave (who I love and adore and who exhibits the patience of a saint in dealing with me), told me a few months back that I needed to leave shorter phone messages and just “get to the point”. It was one of those mea culpa moments when you know you are guilty and have no affirmative defense. It certainly was not a shocking “aha moment” for me. I often am cut off by voicemail and have to call folks back to leave a part two message. Of course in the part two message I must lament that I hate when that happens (that I talk too long) and report that it happens to me all the time. So yes, I know I am guilty as charged.

When I am faced with an answering machine or voice mail the result is a dialogue with not only the listener but also with myself. It is an odd phenomenon and I have reflected upon what is at its root. I think two things occur: first, it is an acceptable version of talking to yourself (even though there is a recording and hence eventually a person on the other end); and secondly, it is a gender-based communication difference.

On the talking to yourself front I can report that this has not always been one of my challenges. My first foray into the land of talking to myself was when I had children. You can talk to your very young children, even though they don’t talk back as you travel about in public and it is completely acceptable. Of course, you have to use the mommy voice, “Mommy shouldn’t buy that ice cream – no, she shouldn’t – because she’ll just get fat – yes, she will – yes, she will– isn’t that right my little sweetie pie?”

This effect wears off when your children are old enough to respond. If I were to say this to Cheyenne today she would confirm in her overly loud dramatic stage voice, “Mom, keep moving you know you are on a diet.” So the self-talk that uses the children as a mechanism for excusing it faded away as each child came into talking age.

Honestly, had I not met Jeanine back in 2006 (she was my graduate assistant for a couple of years and now my dear friend), I think I might have had a prayer of keeping my messages within a normal range. The problem is – Jeanine talks to herself. And by that I do not mean a word or two under her breath (I think all folks do that); no, I mean full sentences with inflection and sometimes even questions that require answers. I first became aware of this when she was in an office next to mine and I thought she was talking to me. She quickly clarified that she was talking to herself – as if it was as normal as the day is long. No apology, no embarrassment – it was, what it was – a conversation that began and ended with Jeanine.

Well, after two years with Jeanine I came to appreciate the value in talking to oneself. Let’s face it – you know what direction the conversation is going, you know the conversation is topically relevant to your interests, and you know that the recipient of the conversation is listening (unless you are sleep talking which is a blog for another day). So now I talk to myself – a lot…thank you Jeanine for introducing me to the utility of it all.

Being able to have a me, myself and I conversation without any outside interaction sets the stage for unbearably long phone messages. When you couple that with the fact that women speak more than men (three times as many words a day researchers say), you are well on your way to hell in a hand basket. These researchers also say that women speak more quickly and receive more pleasure from hearing their own voice than men. So, now I am doubly challenged by virtue of my gender.

Well, regardless of my challenges, nurture or nature, I have been working on shortening my phone messages. Truthfully, I think the primary outcome has been that I merely talk faster so that my messages will be shorter – I can’t say I talk less. As for getting to the point…well…baby steps.

Day eighteen of the new forty – obla di obla da

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