What is it about silence that makes people so uncomfortable? He wonders this every time he talks to someone. Someone introduces him or herself, and he does the same, nothing further. And so they sit there in awkwardness with the expectations of him continuing the conversation when he has no desire to do so. Why they expect something against his nature bemuses him. He prefers to be silent, and being sociable is pushed upon him. When they get annoyed with his silence they make alienating small talk, or they tell an anecdote that he couldn't give two shits about.
Silence is a disrespected phenomenon that beholds the capacity to speak powerful volumes. But such given chances are sparse. A friend with whom conversation is easy — that is perfectly acceptable to him. Even the same with a girlfriend would suffice, but a past girlfriend once dumped him for being a "terrible conversationalist." Intelligent and meaningful conversation with her would be an anomaly anyway.
And so he spends his days in relaxing solitude. He has grown so accustomed to being alone that he swears solitary confinement could never puncture his sanity. Not even the solitude of Jack Nicholson's "The Shining" could scratch the surface of his sanity; that is, omitting the extremely peculiar wife and son in the film.
Loneliness is no longer a stranger to him; it is more of an invited familiarity. And so when associated with people, he is an outsider. At times he's not bothered by it, other times he is, desiring close relationships with people, unable to recall any sincere close bond with anyone other than family. He agrees it is his fault, but it is his nature by his own doing. He is his own creation... Reminiscing to his adolescence he remembers always being ignored and interrupted by peers whenever in conversation, and so he concocted: If no one ever pays attention to me, why bother talking at all? And he thus conditioned himself to isolation, sparsely engaging in conversation unless someone sincerely desires to listen.
Everybody wants to talk, but no one wants to listen.
A pilgrim in the realm of social conversation, he is the outsider.
