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I’ve never been accused of being a man of few words.I need to be candid about that fact because it means I can empathize with others who suffer from logorrhea. I’m a serial conversationalist. If you’re not careful, I’ll talk you to death. I’m compelled to claim victims and I freely admit this lest I be accused of insensitivity.
I understand loudmouths, chatterboxes and hopeless babblers. Sometimes you can’t help yourself. There are times, though, when you must help yourself. Occasionally you need to keep a lid on it and while it can be a challenge to identify those moments, there are physical locations universally understood to be places where you should shut that pie hole that you call a mouth.
I’m talking about the library.
This is not unprompted. Last week, I shot two models who met for the first time on the shoot. As a talker, I understand how the excitement of meeting someone opens the door for conversation. It’s like an avalanche of words with you riding atop, feeling the exhilarating rush as you cascade down the mountain. The two of them were yakking up a storm in one of the conference rooms. We all were, to be honest. Towards the end, we decided to move to an unoccupied table near the bookshelves. Though the area had only a few students in it, we were definitely not alone.
I left my two models at a table while I went down an aisle of books and during the course of a few minutes their conversation got loud. A young lady near us asked if they could take the conversation elsewhere because it was disturbing her. We did so immediately and I apologized to her for the intrusion as I walked passed. She deserved to know that her issue was not unfounded. We were, after all, in a library.
I’ve been in the library and had to ask others to tone it down. Yes, I am “that guy.” If I told you to can it and it upset you, then sorry I’m not sorry. It’s a library: either shut it or leave. If you need to talk to your friend and you can’t be bothered to speak in a whisper, then go to the Hub, into a conference room or to the restroom. There are a myriad of places to have a conversation. It doesn’t matter where you go, but go you must.
The library is not a lounge for loud conversation. It is the one place where you can demand silence with a reasonable expectation of having said demand met. I’d be a jerk for telling someone to shut up in the Hub. In the library, however, if you don’t shut up you are the jerk. This goes for loud music as well. If you are blaring your headphones to the extent that I can hear every word, you should follow your loudmouth pals down to the 3rd floor computer lab. That goes double for those of you who eat food in the back cubicle. Either you think that nobody can hear you or you don’t care if we do. It is every bit as inconsiderate, though. Simply take an extra 15 or 20 minutes to eat downstairs and come up to the library when you’re done.
I know that sometimes the compulsion to converse is too much to bear. I’ve been there. I know it sucks that you have to shut up in a library; but, please, do.