Say Again

It's an unsettling feeling to be halfway through telling someone something and realize that you've said it all before...to the same person. There's doubt, too, because they didn't stop you. So, you try to gauge from their expression whether they really don't remember or are merely being polite by not calling you on it. You continue speaking because you can't be sure, and well, you've come this far already, but underneath it all, you're thinking, oh no, I'm that guy.
We've all known someone who repeats their stories or jokes so many times that you wonder if they even notice their audience at all or if they just play back the words in automatic response to a given stimulus. Could they really not remember that you were there the last four times they recounted the funny thing that happened when...? For me, the supreme example would be my Dad, who generally entertains with his nonstop tale-telling on first meeting, but after a few decades, seems more like a sitcom rerun marathon on late night TV. You find yourself nodding and "mhm"ing and waiting for him to breathe so you can move the conversation along to something more relevant. It barely ever works.

Seeing myself cast in that light is a little disturbing; so, when I perceive the glare, I usually try to shuffle offstage as quickly as I can gracefully. To me, words should matter. I've never cared much for the mindless small talk conversations that go on all around us everyday. I conserve my words, generally offering them only when necessary for communication or when I feel they really add something to the conversation. I realize that small talk can be like social glue, and I do try it now and then when I feel it might be important to someone. It doesn't come naturally, though, and I'm not very good at it. So, it's particularly discouraging when I go out on that limb only to discover I'm making my listener bored or uncomfortable with unintentional repetition. This may be another reason I like writing. Your audience isn't socially obligated to listen to you babble. If they don't like what's being said, they can stop reading or skip ahead to the interesting bits.

So why do we find ourselves repeating the same things over and over? Often, it's because what we're saying is important to us. We've learned or discovered some truth we think everyone should know. We want to shout it to the world. We want to point out the beauty or warn our fellow travellers of some pitfall. In being the advocate, however, we risk running over that same ground with someone twice or even more.

Similarly, we echo information to help us absorb it ourselves. An idea strikes us as significant, and we say it again in order to understand it or test its limits. Repetition becomes a tool, a meditation on the subject, and it has a way of solidifying what we say. It makes it more real for listener and speaker alike. We'll come back to those significant ideas each time we observe them in new circumstances and repeat them each time they apply. In this way, every retelling adds to the wholeness of it in our minds as things have a way of coming around to the basic truths again and again.  The World is Round.

Maybe the most common reason for verbal repetition is that we just forget who we told what. Most of us have many interactions through the day, and we distribute information of various kinds to people depending on the type of relationship we share. While it may be easy to remember sharing a personal secret with a close friend or family member, it's less easy to remember to whom you mentioned that interesting fact you've been telling everybody. Often, you start into the telling based on the feeling that this is just the sort of thing the listener would appreciate, only to realize that's because they enjoyed it the first time you told them (or worse yet, because they're the one who told you.)

Unfortunately, it's usually the people you feel closest to who get the most verbal reruns. They fit the most categories of information you're inclined to distribute because you often share the same world, friends, and spheres of interest. You have more opportunities to repeat yourself because you probably see them more often than anyone else. And, lastly, these are the people you want to share everything with. The lucky part is that these people you repeat yourself to most often are also the ones who know and like you the best. Chances are, they'll be patient and tolerant, and they'll love you anyway.

In my wedding vows, I promised to love my husband even when his jokes got old. It was intended to get a laugh, and it did, but it was also sincere. Those repetitions are like waves on the surface of the water. They're part of the pattern of who he is at a certain time, and the waves wouldn't keep touching the shore if the two weren't so close together. I suppose the principle applies both ways. The things I repeat are part of my pattern as well, and I'm glad to have found someone who's comfortable with the waves I create.

Comments

  1. In a slight tangent, I listen to repeated stories with equal interest because often people tell things and some detail of the story that was left out initially is included in the new telling, or perhaps they're telling it for a different reason and there is a different slant to it. Also, as the daughter of a pathological liar, the retelling of a story presents an opportunity to see into the mind of the teller, make sure their information has not completely changed so that I have to figure out what portion is truth to be extracted. I think retold stories reveal much more about the teller than they even know, and I always listen.

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  2. My first husband was one to stretch a story with every telling for dramatic effect. After seeing the changes in stories about events I actually witnessed (and how completely he grew to believe the mutated versions)I learned to listen to multiple tellings too. And it's true, particularly when the repeat is a means of digesting the information, you can get more out of hearing a story twice. So, if I should repeat myself, I hope the listeners will consider it an opportunity more than an annoyance.

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