bhugz,
I thought of something I hadn't mentioned before. In a recent therapy session I was explaining "the blank" to my therapist. We were discussing how some people actually have the opposite problem and don't know when to be silent, and if you can imagine, this is also a social problem for these people because people get bored with someone who talks to much too. I told my t that when talking to someone, I never felt that I brought anything of myself to the conversation, that I only responded to what others said and while that may be very satisfying for them, it wasn't for me. He suggested that I simply begin to use a lot of "I" statments when talking to others, for example, someone says "I like blue". Instead of responding with "Yes, blue is a good color", I could say "I like green." I tried this and it actually worked. I was worried the conversation would spin around untethered and we'd only be going back and forth with "I" stuff. But my conversation partner responded without a missed beat and we talked quite a bit that evening. I was also worried that using the "I" statements would make me sound like a self-centered person too much. But, once I weighed it out, I decided sounding self-centered was a better accusation to live with than the "wallflower." Hope this helps

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall." Confucius