Years of doing most of my chatting online have left me inept and actual real-world conversation. I need to see my words before I send them out into the world.

Just today, I was in the checkout line at the local grocery store, and the woman behind me struck up a conversation. Or at least she tried to. Our children go to the same school, so we’ve seen each other in passing before.

So introduced herself, and I literally didn’t know what to say. So I just smiled. Then she asked for my name, and I gave her my screen name. Fortunately I said it so softly that she couldn’t really hear me anyway.

She kept trying to talk to me. I WANTED to talk to her. But my mind shut down. I ended up just nodding, smiling, and walking away.