Burning Table Topics

So I'm a bit behind.  It's been a few weeks since I gave my speech.  Since then I have been both the Table Topics Master and the ToastMaster.  This means there will most likely be multiple posts over the next couple of days.  :)

What I am learning is that this is much harder than I thought it would be.  Everytime I do something new and think it's the hardest thing ever, I do something else the next week that's even harder for me.

Everyone handles being self-conscious in different ways.  Toastmasters makes you confront your self-consciousness head on in a zillion different ways, so that you are constantly finding something new about your fears and being forced to deal with them.

I thought Table Topics would be the hardest for me.  It was why I joined Toastmasters to begin with.  I thought it would help me learn how to join in random conversations; to know how to find something to say and how to say it.  But it has turned out to be the easiest for me - because we are given a prompt, a specific question to answer.  And what I have learned is that my self-consciousness, when I am forced to speak, manifests itself as babbling.  I can babble inanely for at least two minutes, about anything I am asked.  Working on organizing the babbling into coherent, well-spoken thoughts is infinitely easier than the rest of what I have found in myself.

I volunteered to be the Table Topics Master thinking it would be easy.  Thinking up questions for everyone else to answer - easy peasy. 

Then I found out the theme for that day's meeting was "Automobile Accidents."

Yeah, I made that face too.

Trying to think up several questions that were in some way tied to the theme, but not morbid or depressing was not easy.  I also found myself worrying about what other people would think about my questions... Were they too easy?  Were they lame?  "I can't ask THAT!!  It's so unprofessional..."  Etc.

THIS... THIS is the problem I have with small talk with people I don't know well.  I worry about the impression I am making.  To an extent, I don't particularly care what people think of me... if they are right.  By which I mean that as long as what they think is in line with who I am and what I think of myself; I don't care if they think I'm wordy or too anal-rententive - because I am.  But I don't want to say or ask something that would give an incorrect view of who I am.  For example:  Nine times out of ten, when I say "I don't want kids, ever!" people assume that I do not like kids.  This is incorrect.  But tacking on the "ever!" and using the tone I do (which is emphatic) causes ninety percent of the population to assume that I do. 

So being the Table Topic Master, being handed a topic I didn't choose, and then having to think of questions that fit in the theme and give me a snapshot of the person answering them, was an EXCERSIZE for me.  In addition, trying to find a way to segway from one question to the next felt stilted and awkward to me.  I HATED it.  Transitions in speeches, in writing, are fairly easy to work on.  But Table Topics Mastering involves using what someone else said and working it into the next question for someone else.  This is a vital communication skill.  I don't have it.  I'm at a loss for how to comment on something someone else said and use it to ask another question.

...But I'm excited about forcing myself to figure it out.