There are moments in everyone's life when something happens, something extraordinary, something so exquisite and exciting and overwhelming that we want to share it. We're social creatures, we're built that way. So we do. We start gushing to the first person we think will understand.

It goes like this.

At first we're swimming too deep in our own exuberance to be able to notice the reaction of the one listening to us (or pretending to listen). It's only after we manage to really get into the story of our epiphany—whatever it is—that we notice peculiar silence. Or polite silence. Or an interruption. Or it can be a glazed-over look, or a disbelieving shake of a head. This misunderstanding comes in many shapes, but the message is the same.