Without really meaning or wanting to, I seem to approach conversations with new people as a game. I feel uncomfortable in these situations, like a person inside a robot awkwardly operating its jerky limbs and halting voice box, but it's the only way I can think of to concentrate and prevent myself from looking like a total fool. The main rules are these:
1. Keep the topic mainly on the other person; if I end up revealing more about myself than he/she has of his/herself, I could seem self-centered and lost in stories they don't really care all that much about anyway. Even if you've found something in common, let them talk about it a little bit more.
2. Don't be afraid of pauses. Someone doesn't have to be talking literally all the time.
3. Try not to worry about how much I'm sweating.
4. Keep eye contact most of the time, but not in a creepy or aggressive way. More quiet and friendly, than intense, "I MUST LOOK AT YOUR EYES AT ALL TIMES."
5. Avoid nervous tics, like picking at my fingernails, clenching my hands, occasional heavy sighs, brushing my hair back, or chewing my bottom lip.
6. Keep a watch on my Southern accent, because it tends to become noticeably heavier when I'm nervous. (If the person has a heavy one too, this doesn't matter so much, but otherwise I think people start to talk down to me, which is insulting.)
7. Don't get lost in my own head, panicking about what I'm going to say or do next. Calmly take the situation as it develops.
The past two weeks have been full of new people encounters, and I am thoroughly exhausted. It is exhausting to have strategy just to talk to people, but I freeze otherwise, so here I am.
Number 7, translated: Forget the rest of the list. (Helpful)
ReplyDeleteIn new people situations, I usually try to figure out what they are wanting me to act like, and then ta da I have a template for how to act. Fantastic that I'm so self-assured, isn't it?
And I usually talk too much.
Robby, I know this is a crazy list, but we cannot all be suave self-assured gentlemen such as yourself. I was trying to give insight into my ~*panicked, detail-obsessed, introverted mind*~.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, you do talk quite a lot, but I don't mind usually because then I don't have to think of much to say.
Haha, I'm just saying that number seven seems weird in light of 1-6.
ReplyDeleteBUT GUESS WHAT
WOOO
AND ALSO YAY
And if you're describing me as "suave," you've obviously never seen me.
"In new people situations, I usually try to figure out what they are wanting me to act like, and then ta da I have a template for how to act."
ReplyDeleteI do that, but I don't do it as well as you do, Robby.
Caitlin: You interact with people just fine, you know. You always think you are being more ridiculous than you are, which I totally understand (because I think everybody does that), but still. I think many people are too busy trying not to come off like fools to notice whether you come off like one, and as long as you can make them laugh if they do notice, they'll probably just be grateful.
Whenever I am talking to anyone, my objectives are:
1. Make the person feel heard and understood
2. Make the person feel at ease
3. Make the person feel entertained
In that order. I love hanging out with you, Robby, because you tend to take care of that stuff for me, and I can just sit back and people-watch when we're in groups and because I feel I can be myself when it's just us. I love hanging out with you, Caitlin, because when we're in groups, I can make everyone feel comfortable without stepping on toes and because I feel I can be myself when it's just us.
I love to talk. I can monopolize conversations and feel completely comfortable. I also love to be quiet and listen. I can say absolutely nothing in conversations and feel completely comfortable. Both of them feel like completely genuine parts of who I am. Maybe that's weird. I don't know.
ALSO: It isn't awkward unless you make it awkward.
ReplyDelete:-D
Um no. Sometimes things are awkward even when nothing has changed.
ReplyDeleteThat's the beauty of being human? I guess?
The thing about awkwardness is that it's all in people's perceptions of it. If you perceive something as awkward, it becomes awkward. To take a random example, talking about blood and guts and bodily functions stops being awkward if you're a doctor or nurse or something.
ReplyDeleteMy sister talks about stuff like that all the time, and it all seems perfectly normal to her, and to me, but sometimes, she'll get halfway through what she's saying and say, "Wait. It's weird that we're talking about this." And suddenly it is. It wasn't the thing itself, though, so much as it was our perception of the thing. So, in that sense, I think it is true.