Echoes of things

When I've joined groups, such as book discussions, politically minded, or therapy oriented assemblage, I always find myself doing an awful lot of talking, I have a compulsion to fill in the silence, hours before it could ever become uncomfortable. Okay so as a self admitted talkie, I still don't understand how it is that people come to discuss yet sit there silently.
There was a class that I took in college, it was a workshop which meant it was worth many credits and it was two hours there times a week. After the first week where three other people showed up, I was the only one that attended, so it was myself and the professor for two hours three times a week for 12 weeks. NOW that, is uncomfortable to the millionth power.
Last night as I led a book discussion with three people, of which one had finished the book, and I was pulling out entrails to get people to participate in some way, I thought to myself, all I want in the world is to go home and have a tootsie roll pop and read Michael Chabon's new book and listen to the voices in my head rather then the ones that aren't talking here.