Talk to me

It's one of the "sad but true" aspects of my life that people rarely ever start conversations with me.

Oh, they do if I'm physically near them (standing in the room and all that), but apparently not if it involves a phone call or an email. Of the friends and family with whom I keep in contact, I can count on one hand the number of times they've contacted me first.

Every now and then I get into a "well I'll just stop contacting them, then - then we'll see if they care enough to get in contact with me" kind of mood.

Unfortunately, I can't shake the feeling that it's purely by virtue of my own stubbornness that I speak to these people at all, and should I stop initiating conversations they will rapidly become people I used to talk to, followed in due course by becoming people I used to know.

The thing is, I usually start a conversation with them because something made me think of them. I see something and think to myself "Tom would have gotten a kick out of that" so I write an email to Tom to tell him about it. Or I'll start writing an email to Tom and think "actually, this is news I wouldn't mind sharing with Dick and Harriet, too", so I'll turn it into a group letter and send it to everyone with whom I wish to keep up-to-date.

I do this in the vain hope that they will also want me to know about what's happening in their lives - that they will think "Sharon would be interested in this" and tell me about the people they've met and the things they've seen.

Obviously, nobody thinks about me enough to actually want to tell me things. Oh, they'll reply to my messages and tell me new things while they're doing it, but it seems no one sees anything and thinks "must tell Sharon." Or no one thinks "I wonder what Sharon would make of this" and sends me a text message to ask me.

This also results in me feeling increasingly out of the loop - they know what's going on in my life, but I don't really know what's going on in theirs (mind you, I think I've managed to get left out of every loop ever created in the history of loops).

A couple of people do, occasionally, send me a message of some description without my sending one to them first, but this is not a regular event.

I'm really very easily pleased. All you have to do to make me feel loved and wanted is give me the impression you think about me from time to time. Nothing big and earth-shattering - just an indication that I've crossed your mind.

That's not too much to ask, is it?