Yes, Virginia, there ARE just two types of people

“There are two types of people,” said my dad in one of his random bits of wisdom that’s remained in my brain for some 50 years.

“The Takers and the Givers,” said he.

Oh. How. Right. He. Proved. To. Be. That life has proven him to be.

My edition:

“There are two types of people. The Talkers and the Listeners.”

When you strip the statements down to their basics, the fundamental is identical. Takers = Talkers. Givers = Listeners

I’ve been seeing — rather, listening — to it in action for the past 1-1/2 hours. At a cafe. Two gals guesstimated 20-21 years old at the next table.

The blonde has been yammering yammering yammering for just about the entire time. Spilling out her evidently boyfriend problems in dull dramatic detail. “Like he said this, then I said that, then he said he didn’t know how to do that, and I said …” you get the picture.

Her friend with long dark hair has been listening listening, rarely commenting and even more strikingly not riveted to her cell phone, which is the modern American custom.

Irony is, from what I overheard before popping in the earbuds and dialing up Pandora, the gist of the Talker’s — the blonde’s — ceaseless chattering is Dull Drivel.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

oops, dozed off

Meanwhile, the friend with the straight long raven hair who’s hardly said anything comparatively has much more to talk about. Much more interesting content at least.

She’s about 6 months pregnant.

I am that Raven. Minus an infant-in-creation. Or the hair.

I’m the one who Listens Listens Listens Listens Listens Listens and Listens to the entire world. To the entire fucking world.

I am the Giver in my dad’s equation.

And in this current scenario, the Blonde Chatty Cathy is the Taker. Take take take take taking up air space. Taking up time and energy from Raven — who should be cited for her patience.

This scene got me thinking. If Blonde Chatty Cathy is already so ENGROSSED in her own adolescent-y stuff, is such a selfish Taker and Talker at age 20 (ish), what’s she gonna be like when she’s 30, 40?

Because by that time, you can’t blame Diarrhea of the Mouth on youth or immaturity.

I can tell you what she’s gonna be like: One in an infinite number of middle-aged women who doesn’t shut the fuck up.

It’ll be all about her, her kids, her husband, what they’re doing, not doing, what she said, what they said …. blahblahblahblahblahblahblah ………………..

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

So dad, you were absolutely spot-on.

There’s two kinds of people in the world: The Takers and the Givers.

The ratio in my observation: 80% to 20%.

AND: There are the Talkers and the Listeners.

That ratio: 95% to 5%.

Praise the lord for Pandora and earbuds!! — for without ’em, well, either I’d-a grabbed the long hair of Blonde Chatty Cathy and dragged her outta the cafe caveman/woman style …. or this post woulda been bursting with profanities!

The final word I leave to this dear ol’ dude:

 

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Zip it. Put a sock in it. Wind your neck in. Shut your pie hole.

However you say it, whatever charming idiom you select, the message is the same.

But I get ahead of myself.

Happens every time.

Put three women together who don’t know one another well or long.

And one won’t shut the fuck up.

One has Diarrhea of the Mouth. A Mucky Mouth (“muck” = a poetic reference to that brown stuff.)

Instruct each woman to briefly introduce herself and one’ll yammer on and on on and on and on.

The world is her stage: all the time.

She’s stage center: all the time.

Everything she says is important: in her mind.

In her verbiage, she has no sense of measure, proportion, value or lack thereof of content, sharing, fairness or equal air time for others.

Her self-importance fills the room like fumes from a toxic spill. She has no awareness that (a) her listeners exist and (b) are human beings with their own needs.

She has no sense of what needs to be shared in a group and what is better  put into a journal or spilled into the ears of family and friends — poor them.

A basic introduction is, what, 3 minutes. The Mucky Mouth’ll yak yak yak ramble ramble ramble ramble for 3-4 times that, convinced that everything she says is interesting, important, valuable.

She’s wrong 99.9% of the time.

The world’s divided into two kinds of people, my wise and not-very-talkative dad imparted once at the dinner table.

The Takers and the Givers, he said.

At 10 years old or so, I didn’t yet have life experience to prove or disprove. That came later and soon enough.

He was spot on.

The world IS filled with Takers.

Givers are a distinct minority.

A TRUE listener (which I am, my sister is) the rarest minority of all.

The Yakkers, The Yammerers, the Ones Who Won’t Shut the Fuck Up, the Diarrheas of the Mouths, the Mucky Mouths.

Call ’em what you will, it’s all the same. Women are far more guilty of ceaseless yammering than  men.

Excepting generally gay guys, put three men (who aren’t close or longtime familiar) in a group and know what you’ll get?

Silence.

Eventually someone’ll grunt. A second may add his grunts to the first.

Then the next. But no guy’ll go on and on and on until the universal clock itself expires or a black hole sucks him in, whichever comes first, shutting him up — finally.

In groups, outside of bars, racetracks, sports fields and the sort, guys don’t vomit banal, boring verbiage into the laps of listeners, across the table, over the chairs and floors.

It’s a women’s thing.

{shudder}

I hate it. Just one of many traits that make me unlike most women.

I’ve theories about why women won’t shut the fuck up while getting men to talk in identical situations can be like pulling teeth.

This topic rankles since Sunday night, Halloween eve. A new moon — in Scorpio no less! Rita held a New Moon gathering/ritual for women to plant seeds for desired manifestations.

Of course “sharing” was involved.

Some 34 women showed, most strangers to one another. So we went around the room doing brief introductions.

Allegedly “brief.”

At least two women yakked and yakked. Eating up valuable time. Adding, really, nothing to the group. One diarrhea-ed (made-up verb) on.

When my turn came, I stated my  name, nothing more or else.

Women are generally extremely social creatures. Social and verbal. The mix lends itself to EXACTLY WHAT WOMEN DO: Talk too much. Talk endlessly. AND AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS — the most damaging of all. They won’t listen. Can’t listen.

But they sure can fucking talk!!

A definitive characteristic of a Talker is Zero Listening.

Biology lesson. Females socialize. They talk a lot and too much. They attach to one another, they bond — even when it’s no genuine bond. They congregate. Form groups, nee cliques. Then they become all catty and backstab and exclude. They become Mean Girls.

I digress somewhat. The moon circle. So that Mucky Mouth went on and on. I looked at the clock. I turned my attention away from her, scanned the group, basically turn my attention away in hope that she might read the signal that her time was up. 10 minutes ago.

But she didn’t notice.

The Talkers never do. They’re oblivious.

Had I had my phone, I’d-a started researching Brazil’s soccer scores from the 1970s.

I couldn’t care less about Brazil. Or soccer. Or scores from 4 decades ago. That’s how much that Mucky Mouth needed to zip it.

Just as snow must stop falling in summer, the Mucky Mouth finally shut it. But as every female group has one that she will be revealed, so it went on moon night.

So that Mucky Mouth at the gathering and EVERY one past and future, to your spillage of 4,000-words, I’ve got but 4, simple and concise: