Verbal Possession

Verbal Possession: when your mouth gets taken over by something ungodly. You don't know what has come over you. You are in a conversation and you say something that you don't even think. After it comes out of your mouth, you don't really know why you said it; it was an out-of-mouth experience. You don't even recall having that thought, it was like your mouth was possessed by another being causing you to spew out random thoughts.

You try to recant what you have just said or talk yourself around it. If not, you have to back up your statement or move on after a healthy awkward silence. Verbal possession seems to happen in nervous or new situations, especially on dates or when meeting new people when the social lubricant is absent (or just hasn't kicked in yet). You are trying to carry out a conversation and then all of a sudden you start telling a stupid, babbling story, that is not really even a story, doesn't really have a point or didn't even happen.

I have been known to make strong statements that I don't even really think. At a recent work event, a few writers and I were having a conversation about singers. The convo shifted to the subject of Beyonce and I blurt out, "I hate Beyonce." Just like that. As soon as I said it, I thought, I don't hate Beyonce. It was such an abrupt, blunt statement that everyone stopped talking. I, of course, tried to recover and said "I actually do like her music and I listen to it all the time." I don't, in fact, listen all the time, just when it comes on Pandora or at a bar or something. In any case that statement totally contradicted the previous one—just keep digging that hole. So now, instead of carrying on an intelligent conversation with new contacts, the only thing I have done was establish that I am a bitter, pop-music addict who hates the performers that she listens to. I seriously don't know what came over me, I don't feel strongly about the pop diva either way. These people must think I am pretty weird and later that night I totally had a déjà cringe over it.