The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-06-02
Dorothy Dix Talks
By DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.

How to Avoid Being a Bore.
The second precautionary measure
against becoming a bore is to avoid
the monologue habit. There are none
whom we hate and dread so much as
those who get the floor and keep it,
while they listen enraptured to the
sound of their own voices, while alH the
balance of US sit on pins and needles
waiting for a chance to break in and
try out our own vocal organs.
Never forget that conversation is
never a one man, or one woman per-
Torrance, be the talker ever so
learned or have ever so interesting a
thing to relate. The conversation that
every one enjoys is a game of give
and take in which each has a share,
for his opinion is as dear to the dull
man, and he likes to air his views as
well as the brilliant man does his.
If you would not be a bore do not
be a conversation hog any more than
you would be road hog. Give way to
that in any popularity contest the
medal always goes to the silent. The
monologuist hasn't a look in.
Finally, if you would avoid being a
bore refrain from talking about your
self and your family. This takes cour-
age, and an amount of heroic self-sac-
rifiee that few people are capable Of
but it's the price of keeping out of the
class of those whose society makes us
very tired.
OF course, we are so thrillingly in
teresting to ourselves, and everything
that happens to u.s. is SO much more
important than any other earthly hap
pening that we never really under
stand how it is possible for other peo-
pie not to hang with baited breath, on
the details of Johnny's cloup, eor the
last bulletin from the front in our per-
10, 1iaI iOf
Still many things exist in nature
that we never comprehend, and we
may accept it as a fact that no Other
human being except our mother takes
more than a casual and languid inter-
est in our personal affairs, and thai
the surest way to become a champion
bore is to discourse about them to
others.
All of us know people who never
see US if we see them first, because
we'll we know that if we meet they
! will fix US with their glittering eye
while they maunder on and on
about what wonders their children
are, or what a paragon of a car they
| have got, or what phenomenSl sweet
peas they have grown, or inflict upon
us every detail of whatever business
| they are in, and what they said to the
boss and the boss said to them.
And while we writhe in the clutches
of such bores we marvel that they dc
not know how much more wonderful
and interesting are our children, anc
our sweet peas, and our business, and
we just wait for a pause in the tall
to chip in with our story, and tc
qualify in the bore race.
| For it takes great wisdom for us tC
realize that Smith is more interested
| in telling about his forty mile rail-
road trip to Squeedunk than he is il
hearing about our trip around the
world.
But when we reach the point where
we put the lid on our own persona
experience, and invite others to tel
US the stories of their lives, we are
past all need of worrying over the
danger of being a bore. We have
become a listener, and no sympathetic
listener was ever a bore. He. or she
| is the one absorbingly interesting com
panion of whose society we never ge
enough.