So I’ve been able to pinpoint where exactly I fail in terms of socializing.
It’s something I also experience with people I know and am friends with. I simply never have anything to add to the conversation, because I lack interest in most of what people have to say. Rarely am I ever genuinely interested in a conversation. I have very little interest in smalltalk, and the reason I’ve been failing at engaging in conversation, is simply because I’m trying to strike up conversations in ways that might interest others, rather than myself.
Does anyone else experience this? And do you have some kind of work-around? I’d still like to continue trying to be more social, but since I’ve just discovered what the issue is, it’s gotten a lot more complicated than simply, “stepping out of my comfort zone”. It seems almost like this problem is putting some sort of handicap on my conversational abilities. How am I supposed to engage with anyone if I can only talk to certain people and only about certain things? Even if I did only talk about what interests me, I can never say any of it off of the top of my head.
Edit: I could obviously just say, “Fuck it”, and go full-on anti-social, not talking to anyone unless it interests me, but then that kind of defeats the purpose of what I’m trying to do. I mean, it makes sense, it’s not like talking is going to make me live longer or anything like that, but I want to talk so that I can form connections, which currently I do not have. And unfortunately, unlike in those movies or tv shows, the dark, mysterious man who barely speaks unless it’s absolutely necessary, does not end up finding himself surrounded by people eager to learn more about him. (A bit of an exaggeration to compare myself to those types of characters, as they have a level of confidence I could only dream of.) Someone like that just ends up being a loner.
Context I forgot to add, idk how relevant this is: I am someone who tends to be very indifferent to most things in life. Although I wish to change and shift from that, as it is actually impacting my social life very negatively, I don’t think I’ll ever really get past that, as it’s sort of hardwired into me and is part of my nature. I’m not sure if trying to go against that is equivalent to working against myself, and thus it will make things harder, but that’s why I want to find a method that’s easiest for me.
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“even if I talk about things that interest me I can never say any of it off the top of my head.”
What does that mean?
I completely understand what you mean! I have days where I can’t engage in conversation very well and the only way to come off as not completely uninterested is too talk about something that I am interested in! Normally I connect the dots in conversation to something that I’ve been doing or one of my hobbies, just a super simple quick example that happened the other day:
” Yeah the weather is meant to be boiling this week!”
“Yeah I heard about that! Unfortunately it absolutely chucked it down when we we’re at the cricket last weekend” blah blah blah talk about cricket for 20 mins etc
Of course I’m paraphrasing slightly but it’s a trick I always use if I think I’m coming across as boring or if the conversation is genuinely boring me lmao, hope you find your own trick to help you in socialising better XD
I kinda feel this sometimes. On the other hand, I fear that sometimes being or acting interested comes off as lame or desperate, depending on the situation. Sometimes I have a dilemma between possibly being lame by being uninterested and possibly being lame by being interested.
I used to often felt like that. I found out, that I used to be interested in something like “facts” eg “what do you do?” “when this happened? ” etc. However, the good questions (and answers, and interactions overall ) aren’t about “facts”, but about person’s ideas, emotions, thoughts, preferences etc. That is much easier to relate and engage if you ask “did you like it?” or “what was the best part” “if you could, what would change?” etc
Question: How comfortable are you feeling emotions? Not intellectualizing emotions, but feeling them. Are your emotions something that you feel comfortable sharing with others as a routine part of getting your needs met, or no?
It’s hard. I have Aspergers so having a conversation is a pain in the ass to begin with. I usually just ask tons of questions related to them and what they say and try to listen. I hate it, but I do it because it makes people feel nice, which makes me feel nice as well.
One way I’ve found to be very effective at appearing engaged and keeping the other person talking, is mirroring.
There’s a section in the book *’Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It’* that expands upon how to effectively use this tool. A great book overall if you have an audible credit to burn. Listening through it for the 3rd time currently. Pick up something new every time.
The difficult part for me tends to be retaining the details enough to call back to it in future conversations. This requires a genuine interest in what the person is saying, or a concerted effort to commit what they’re talking about to memory and gain some deeper understanding about the subject. This does not come naturally to people like us and will require some effort on your part. Putting in that effort will help you build those connections, it doesn’t go unnoticed by most people.
Yes. If I genuinely don’t care what they’re saying I shift the conversation from small talk generic topics/questions to something meaningful. Example: Not what does a person like but why do they like it? If someone has an interest in something they’ll usually be open sharing a lot about it and human nature details I can find engaging. Once that starts flowing I can dig deeper. Their excitement keeps me hooked but the simple emotion even if I have zero interest in the topic. Every conversation is a learning opportunity.
Conversation is a non-optional social covenant, you can’t just opt-out. It’s a skill like any other, practice, get better, do it again, do it some more. Eventually you will get good at it and it will even feel good.
The fix is that you have to have a mindset of wanting to find out every single detail of that person. View it as a mission. The deeper you go, the more interesting the person becomes.
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Have you tried faking interest? Or just making jokes to distract from your lack of interest? Always works for me!
Well, if you’re not interested in what people have to say, maybe try interrupting them with a loud scream to keep things exciting. Or just slowly back away. You do you.
Well, have you tried pretending to be interested? Fake it till you make it, baby! Or just steer the conversation towards something you’re actually interested in, like cute puppy videos.