I was so excited when I managed to secure an open seat next to the sultry temptress at the bar. I mean she was obviously a little drunk, but she had the cutest little slur. I found it very hard to believe that she was alone, with no one to talk to. I found it even harder to believe that she was willing to talk to me.
Maybe it was because I wasn't wearing the same striped button up as the pack of ravenous guido-fuck-boi-types lurking in the shadows of the bar. I decided to wear something that I felt comfortable in, something that represented me. This in itself made me unique. I'm not out there looking for someone to take home for a night and get my rocks off with a quick upvoting. I'm looking for connection.
Unfortunately as I sit here I realize why I was the "chosen one". It wasn't because I bring an honest originality to the table. It was because I was one of the only people willing to listen.
Although she had no concept of the importance and power of brevity, (discussed in "Keep it short, stupid"), I could forgive her for that. I found myself still willing to hold her hair at the end of the night as she would inevitably hurl up those apple-tinis, she was drinking. I was late getting to the bar so I can only speculate that like many others, the fuck-boi-brigade probably only made it 62 words in, before diverting their attention elsewhere.
I'm better than them, right?
Nope.
I'm a great listener but, after 4 hours of listening to her banter on about "50 useful things you can knit from cat hair", I found myself sweating. The way she just kept droning on about certain topics was killing me. I'll give her the benefit of a doubt and say she might have had a few points on her subject matter but the density of her words had me feeling claustrophobic. Not to mention that she never gave me a chance engage in conversation. I not only lost interest in her message but I was more or less just waiting for my turn to talk.
Recently I did a post, (you can find it here), where I tested the diligence of readers on SteemIt. The article was purposely sensationalized with the information that NASA had found proof of life on Mars. Within the context of a dense scientific excerpt from Wikipedia I hid a paragraph that told readers it was a total farce, and the scope of what I was testing. I told them to use the words "blue" or "magenta" in their comments on the article to show me that they "found" this paragraph.
Out of the 79 upvotes that I received there were 15 people that I know of, that found the "hidden" paragraph. This is roughly an astounding 19% of people. Many of which are friends that would most likely read anything that I write . (Or do they?) More interestingly, I've found that I have also failed at engaging the minds of my readers because only 4 people followed the instructions of using "blue" or "magenta" in their comments. That's roughly an abysmal 5% of upvoters on the post.
This makes me feel like a lot of us are, "the drunk girl" at the bar. Even me.
As I make my decision to part ways with my bar stool sitting next to the drunk girl at the bar, I interrupt her describing the benefit of "kitten mittens":
"Look. It's not you. It's both of us. We all need to learn to listen better at times. We both need to learn to get to our points more quickly. We need to remember kindergarten where we learned to take turns, and allow others a chance to engage. I'm not trying to belittle you. I'm only trying to help."
I walk away to the solitude waiting for me at the end of the bar. This leaves her astonished.
I call out for the bartender.
"Bartender, give me a bourbon dressed neat, and send the fuck-boi-wolf-pack over there a round of Jäger Bombs on me. They were right for once. Not everyone wants to listen to endless bantering, even if you are interested in the person behind the words."
I still find myself wanting that connection. The engagement that a succint, engaging post leaves me with.
Looking around the bar of SteemIt I see that there are plenty of these posts out there that do this. There are more that do not. Right now I have my eyes on an under-appreciated beauty that didn't get enough attention. Not sure why more people didn't see her. Maybe people didn't find her appealing. Did they not see the birthmark on her left cheek resembling Henry Winkler?
Either way I know with a straight-to-the-point beauty like her I won't be just waiting my turn to speak.
Shout out to the 20% that (almost) read this. You all are the reason I keep writing.
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If you find yourself needing help stop in and join us in the SteemIt chat in the steemprentice channel. Tell them kryptik sent you.