No stomach for the small talk

I seem to have dramatically changed the way I relate to people, and I'm not quite sure if I like the change. Actually, to be more precise, I flat out dislike the change. Argh!

I used to be an excellent small talker, which smoothed over many an awkward conversation. I can't do that anymore.
I used to be heaps more open about things in general, but now I find I'm not as willing to talk about things that matter a lot to me anymore.

Let me illustrate by way of example.

On Saturday night I met up with a very random bunch of people- most of whom I hadn't seen in a while. One of them was one of the guys I used to lead with. First of all, he asked me that hated question, "How are you?"- which brought up all the issues that I raised in my post a few days ago. Then after I asked it back, there was an uncomfortable silence. And that was it! =p

When people ask me how I am, especially those I haven't seen for a while, after I've exhausted the "uni...uni...uni..." response, the only other big thing I have going on in my life that I am sort of excited about is my songwriting and where that's going at the moment. But I've gambled and told some people about what's going on with that (people external to this blog who haven't lived through the process of me starting this...people who don't really even know I write at all!), but the response has been less than inspiring, something along the lines of "Oh really? That's nice..." (Ok, maybe not that bad, but in that vein!) So yeah, with that guy- and also with a few other people in my life who don't know about my songwriting- people at church mostly- there were many times where I wanted to tell him/them...I wanted to share my excitement with them. But I haven't. And maybe once upon a time I would have told them (probably when I was better friends with them), but now, I prefer to be pretty picky about who I talk to about it all (So picky in fact, that I post it here so only the whole world can read it! Haha.)

Is that weird?? Does that make sense??

I suppose it's something close to my heart...and I don't want people to stomp all over what is close to my heart, even if they don't know that they're stomping at all. Perhaps a natural result is that I can't small talk anymore. (Logic goes: I have nothing exciting going on in my life except songwriting -> I don't want to tell them about it -> Therefore I have nothing to say.)

And maybe the reason for this dramatic change in the way I relate to people is just because I don't feel as close to them anymore. Yeah, that's probably it. Sad in a way.

I suppose the moral of the story is that if I feel I can still relate to you in a normal way, then I consider you a good friend. Go you!! =)