It has never landed me in real trouble but did cause some mild concern on at least one occasion while I was walking through town.
I rounded a corner and saw three cute little sparrows nibbling away at some spilled crumbs on the footpath near a cafe where the tables and chairs shared their paved dining domain.
"Ooh some dear little dicky birds having some yummy tucker," I said aloud, but to myself.
The expressions on the faces of two elderly ladies seated there could best be described as "daggers".
I didn't go back that way for about seven months.
It's when I'm in the bomb site I call my shed working space that I generally spark into conversation with no one at all.
"Ok, so how do we get this thing to attach to this properly?"
A minute or two will pass and then I generally remark to none and unsundry "this isn't going to work at all".
There was one occasion when I called myself up on my cellphone from the landline because I couldn't find the little mobile slice.
Oh yes, it rang and I tracked it to the back of the chair, but I picked it up and answered it with a weary "hello?"
As there was no answer I hung up.
I suspect some of this solo chattering goes back to the many voyages I took across the land aboard motorcycles when I was young enough to wear my "Easy Rider Peter Fonda" sunglasses without looking slightly cartoonish.
Because you have no one else to talk to but yourself on a motorcycle.
"What's this dope up to?" I'd ask myself as some car would come worrying close to my exhausts on a slightly fast stretch.
My next words on one occasion were "I'm sorry officer I'm still not used to this miles per hour and kilometres per hour thing ... keep getting them confused."
So I would continue my journey and again start talking to myself.
"Where the hell am I going to find a hundred bucks for the ticket?"
Am I alone in this pursuit?
Was the bemused visitor who assured me "we all do that" on the button?
Or was he trying to reassure me that while I was veering toward fruitcake land it was not such a terrible thing.
No one would come to any harm ... unless they were elderly ladies sprinkling the crumbed remains of blueberry scones onto the footpath by their feet for the dicky birds to eat.
I have heard it said that it is healthy and even therapeutic to converse with oneself.
Because if you are attempting to do something you're not sure you can do then hearing a voice saying "I think I can do this" is a lot more encouraging than hearing nothing at all.
Whilst sitting here examining that last line I've just heard myself ask myself "does that kind of make sense?"
And I've just heard myself reply to myself "don't answer that."
Had I then replied and asked myself "why not?" then I fear I could have an issue.
But there's nothing to be concerned about - the only concern emerges when people get animated and start talking to people who aren't there or begin howling expletives for no good reason.
And I take heart from the words of a psychologist by the name of Dr Ellen Hendriksen who writes that you are not going crazy if you occasionally talk to yourself.
"You are simply thinking out loud which is not only normal but beneficial."
I couldn't have said it better myself. In fact, I just have and the bloke sitting nearby has started to look at me in an odd sort of way.
- Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.
