Unicators of the World, Unite

A term that I have been working with for the past few years is the verb "unicate" - a term I coined which describes a pernicious but omnipresent mode of verbal communication whereby one person talks incessantly without regard for the poor, hapless receptor of their verbal outpouring. In other words, 'to unicate' means to talk AT someone rather than WITH someone. Whereas in COMMunication there is a passing back and forth of some kind of meaningful exchange, in UNIcation one person unloads word after word after sentence after paragraph of language without letting the other person respond.

The Unicator employs language as a unidirectional spewing forth of sounds that aren't meant for reponse or reflexion or give and take but rather force the listener to sit there and be assaulted by a barrage of words. The person who listens to a Unicator functions like a sidewalk upon which a bird drops its areal steamy dung. Any sort of attempt to circumvent or stop the assault is simply ignored, while the Unicator keeps on talking. When the listener tries to interrupt, the Unicator just keeps on plowing over with Words, Words, Words, Words...

My earliest memories of unication come from my father, a unicator exemplar, perhaps unmatched in his powerhouse unicatory skills. I remember waking up as a child to a sound, a loud, booming, muffled sound from beyond my bedroom walls, pounding the atmosphere, reveberating the walls - this sound was the voice of my father: loud, unceasing, talking talking talking, my mom there listening, and to what? Conversations with my father had been and still are an act of listening. You listen to what the Unicator says, and he has a lot to say. You listen to long explanations of usually unsolicited information, details about technology, history, inane news stories, stories of the Unicator's past, societal explanations, complaints, arguments, rants, and so on.

Unicating is an act of self absorption, a sounding out of one's own ideas on some unsuspecting sap, a taking hostage of some innocent that is made to listen to whatever happens to be rolling around in the Unicator's head, a showing off, a means of taking control of a situation (a one on one, or a group) or exercising control to boost the Unicator's ego, or perhaps to sustain an outdated form of the Unicator's ego: the stories a unicator tells are a skipping record, a CD on infinite repeat, telling the same story wherein the unicator's ego takes center stage, while in the act of unicating and in the stories they tell.