I don't know any sign language, but I would be willing to learn and might actually appreciate the slower conversations.
I have to admit, I would consider this a big plus if I were to end up dating Shizune. I have...issues with speaking to people in person.
The problem is mostly that of having a brain that seems to work slower than other peoples' when it comes to parsing and prepping speech. This tends to manifest itself in a couple of ways - one is an annoyingly constant habit of asking people to repeat what they just said, as if I'd had trouble hearing them. Oftentimes I heard them just fine, but I'll end up asking out of habit anyway. The reason? I need more time to mentally parse what they just said than most people will allow me on their own. If I *don't* do this and just try to speak at my normal response time, there's a very short but noticable gap there that people tend to notice. I *hate* that - it makes me feel like I'm mentally impaired.
There's also a tendancy to accidentally mix up sentence fragments. Ever seen
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (the movie)? There's a hilarious scene where Scott is trying to come up with a response to something said to him...we see a Wheel Of Fortune-style game wheel that spins around to show his mind honing in on a reply. Except it lands directly on the line *between* segments, so instead of "I'll go talk to her" or "I have to go pee" he instead says something like "I have to pee on her".
This very same thing happens to me annoyingly often. When I converse, I tend to mentally take my time thinking of what I want to say, even as I'm in the process of saying it - but it happens slowly enough that my mouth often catches up to my brain halfway through. I'll have two or three possible phrasings of a reply on the tip of my tongue, but before I can pick one my mouth gets to the point where it's needed and it ends up blending them together into something nonsensical.
I can make meaningless small talk just fine, but whenever I need to actually think about what I'm saying (i.e. when I actually *care* about the subject at hand), I come across like some sort of dyslexic or something. It gets worse when I'm agitated, which of course is automatically going to include any interactions with strangers because I tend to get nervous trying to break the ice with them. It may be some sort of offshoot of my Tourette's Syndrome (which in my case is normally limited to physical tics, not verbal ones), or it may just be the result of lack of practice with speaking meaningfully with people. All I know is that I end up sounding like a buffoon when I'm trying to talk to people I don't know in person. It's one of the major factors behind my lingering shyness, it hurts my self-esteem
, and it royally pisses me off because here on the Internet, where I have time to properly distill my stream of conciousness into words, I'm actually quite eloquent (not to mention verbose, as the average length of my posts shows
). Sign language would be a *tremendous* relief for 'speaking' in person, as it has the same "think about what you say before you say it" elements of online chat. Ironically, this is the same reason Shizune dislikes it...it lacks the spontaniety, the 'soul' of verbal speech, if you will.
Also, I'm not sure how the syntax of sign language works, but I imagine it would be harder to make clever puns. Which I enjoy.
there's also the issue that sometimes people just aren't attracted to other people, despite how much they have in common or how much they enjoy each others' company. Or how badly one party wants it...
This is by far one of the most depressing things about humanity in general.
It's also one that I personally have a lot of trouble understanding. Compared to a lot of other people, I seem to have an unusually inclusive set of requirements as far as potential partners so. In all honesty, the only three things I really require from someone to potentially be attracted to them are:
1) A good heart. Someone who's genuinely kind and sweet and compassionate. This is the reason I love the KS girls so much - they're all sweethearts, just in different ways.
2) Respect for the rights of others. I have a strong
For Happiness mentality, and it really ticks me off when people don't respect the right of other people to be happy - do their own thing, believe in their own way. This doesn't just mean jerkasses, but anyone who's needlessly self-righteous in a bad way.
3) Not monsterously ugly. :p This one seems superficial, but it's important to know that my definition of "ugly" generally starts at somewhere around
Jonah Hex level. It is a *very* rare thing for me to find someone outright unattractive - usually it's the result of some specific turn-off (such as bad teeth, which I've found can be a major deal-breaker for me).
Point being, unless one of these is in play, I've found I have the potential for attraction to just about anybody.
Granted, there are certain qualities that might make some people *more* attractive than others (such as Emi's playful personality, or Shizune's well-meaning deviousness
), but I've never been one to discount a person completely based on such things. So it's kind of disturbing when I hear people talk about apparantly having *no* chemistry with a given person - it's not a feeling I've ever really experienced. Maybe my brain doesn't work the same way as other peoples', or maybe I'm just such a pervert that everyone is appealing in some way.
Either way, it's kind of depressing to think that a person might be forever relagated to the 'just friends' zone due to nothing more than getting a poor draw on the biochemical raffle.
Poor Misha...
It's hard to imagine many people being interested in the toned-down, barebones cautious personality that's typical of interactions with people you don't know.
Well, yes, but generally we don't *expect* them to, either. That's why breaking the ice is so important - it's the method of moving past that initial awkwardness and getting to the *real* social interaction beneath. Unfortunately, it's also why shy folks tend to end up lonely - they're either too afraid to try, or too 'uninteresting' for the other party to stick around long enough to see past that initial mask. It's not their fault - everyone is different, and being shy isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. It's just that this particular quality makes it really hard to find a date. :p What this world needs is more people like Hisao who are willing to *pursue* shy people, if only on a platonic level. Even if the friendship/relationship doesn't work out, it still helps them tremendously in learning to come out of their shell. Plus, you never know - you just might like them once you get to know them.