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>I am normally an introvert and I am somewhere between bad and okay at small talk because it bores the hell out of me, but I hold my own perfectly fine in conve

>I am normally an introvert and I am somewhere between bad and okay at small talk because it bores the hell out of me, but I hold my own perfectly fine in conversational settings. I have the same problem but I suppose I come off as an asshole to a lot of people because I can't be arsed to take interest in something that bores me. I think it equally (or even maybe more so) disingenuous to pretend otherwise because people can tell when you're faking it. This isn't a "fake it until you make it" scenario. There are some people I catch easy strides with and have kept in touch with, years later - without having Facebook or the like. Those are few and far-between, though. So, to my point: How do you hold your own perfectly fine in conversational settings if it bores you? Any tips you can provide? I haven't any id

wool_gather 7y ago
> This isn't a "fake it until you make it" scenario. I disagree; I think that's exactly what it is, and on two timescales. There's within the individual conversation -- especially with another introverted-ish person. You might have to struggle your mutual way through some boring shit for a few go-rounds until one of you says something that opens up the window of the conversation. And on the scale of year over year, I think it's learned behavior that stupid small talk can be a pathway to better things. I have great friends that I immediately fell in stride with, as you say, and I have great friends that took time to get to that point. Both are precious.
scarejunba 7y ago
It's the handshake part of our communication protocol. So you get bored doing that now, sure, but the process is inherently a search and you are mutable. So either push through it and run through a preset search list or apply some sort of heuristic but it absolutely is "fake it till you make it". Lots of human conversation can easily work that way. But the most important thing is that you're mutable and hence you don't have to accept it as just a part of you that you get bored by this. That can change.
kian 7y ago
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but if you are bored in a one on one conversational setting, and you have followed the advice of the top comments in this thread, then it likely boils down to one of you not wanting to talk to the other - not usually that someone is boring. What’s boring is that no one is genuinely attempting to get to know the other better by listening to what they are saying and following up with questions whose answers might, or might lead to, something that does interest them. Either that, or the person being bored may have such narrow interests or lack of belief in the value others hold that they are unable or unwilling to find common ground. So I’d say - share your interests in an off-hand way during small talk, and attempt to steer the conversation in such a way that your partner(s) get a chance to do the same - and then pounce on common ground when you find it. And if you take responsibility for finding it, you always will - unless you’re not just “coming off” as an asshole.
munchbunny 7y ago
It was a frame of mind thing for me, and changing my frame of mind helped. I used to have the problem that too many conversations were boring to me, so I wouldn't engage. However, I found two key thoughts driving this feeling. First, some of it came out of my own ego, like thinking I was above trivial things. The truth is I'm not, I'm just interested in different trivial things. And that's okay, but I did need to get over myself and learn to withhold judgement and appreciate the expertise that other people develop in their interests. There are still genuinely uninteresting people, but they are rare if you do a good job of prospecting for the things people focus their attention on. Second, for me, the disinterest was sort of a social pecking order thing. However, it was mostly in my own head. In practice the leaders I respected were the ones who took care to treat me as an intellectual equal, even if they were formally higher on the hierarchy. A rare few people I know require token shows of power before they take you seriously, but most people just want you to relate to them. I had a third realization that was more functional. I am an engineer because I've always thought like one (may not apply to anyone else). I've grown up looking at social conversations a bit like an anthropologist observing a human social ritual. It seemed like a wasteful artifact, and doing it just didn't feel natural for me. However, the reality of it is that it's central to how humans function. I can't opt out, but I can try to deconstruct it into a set of rules, guidelines, and practices that I can internalize just like any other skill, so that's what I did. One key rule is that in any conversation (it's not my own phrase but I forget where it comes from) the other person first remembers how you made them feel, and second remembers if you said anything interesting. In cases where it's entirely a social transaction for me, rule #1 is to make them feel good. That might seem manipulative, but people who are naturally socially fluent do this intuitively, so I don't feel any guilt over intentionally doing it. It's very much a "fake it until you make it" scenario, because our brains in many cases really do work that way. When you pick up a skill, your brain rewires itself in a way that over time the skill requires less conscious thought. Learning to carry conversations followed the same progression for me.

wool_gather 7y ago

> This isn't a "fake it until you make it" scenario. I disagree; I think that's exactly what it is, and on two timescales. There's within the individual conversation -- especially with another introverted-ish person. You might have to struggle your mutual way through some boring shit for a few go-rounds until one of you says something that opens up the window of the conversation. And on the scale of year over year, I think it's learned behavior that stupid small talk can be a pathway to better things. I have great friends that I immediately fell in stride with, as you say, and I have great friends that took time to get to that point. Both are precious.

scarejunba 7y ago

It's the handshake part of our communication protocol. So you get bored doing that now, sure, but the process is inherently a search and you are mutable. So either push through it and run through a preset search list or apply some sort of heuristic but it absolutely is "fake it till you make it". Lots of human conversation can easily work that way. But the most important thing is that you're mutable and hence you don't have to accept it as just a part of you that you get bored by this. That can change.

kian 7y ago

I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but if you are bored in a one on one conversational setting, and you have followed the advice of the top comments in this thread, then it likely boils down to one of you not wanting to talk to the other - not usually that someone is boring. What’s boring is that no one is genuinely attempting to get to know the other better by listening to what they are saying and following up with questions whose answers might, or might lead to, something that does interest them. Either that, or the person being bored may have such narrow interests or lack of belief in the value others hold that they are unable or unwilling to find common ground. So I’d say - share your interests in an off-hand way during small talk, and attempt to steer the conversation in such a way that your partner(s) get a chance to do the same - and then pounce on common ground when you find it. And if you take responsibility for finding it, you always will - unless you’re not just “coming off” as an asshole.

munchbunny 7y ago

It was a frame of mind thing for me, and changing my frame of mind helped. I used to have the problem that too many conversations were boring to me, so I wouldn't engage. However, I found two key thoughts driving this feeling. First, some of it came out of my own ego, like thinking I was above trivial things. The truth is I'm not, I'm just interested in different trivial things. And that's okay, but I did need to get over myself and learn to withhold judgement and appreciate the expertise that other people develop in their interests. There are still genuinely uninteresting people, but they are rare if you do a good job of prospecting for the things people focus their attention on. Second, for me, the disinterest was sort of a social pecking order thing. However, it was mostly in my own head. In practice the leaders I respected were the ones who took care to treat me as an intellectual equal, even if they were formally higher on the hierarchy. A rare few people I know require token shows of power before they take you seriously, but most people just want you to relate to them. I had a third realization that was more functional. I am an engineer because I've always thought like one (may not apply to anyone else). I've grown up looking at social conversations a bit like an anthropologist observing a human social ritual. It seemed like a wasteful artifact, and doing it just didn't feel natural for me. However, the reality of it is that it's central to how humans function. I can't opt out, but I can try to deconstruct it into a set of rules, guidelines, and practices that I can internalize just like any other skill, so that's what I did. One key rule is that in any conversation (it's not my own phrase but I forget where it comes from) the other person first remembers how you made them feel, and second remembers if you said anything interesting. In cases where it's entirely a social transaction for me, rule #1 is to make them feel good. That might seem manipulative, but people who are naturally socially fluent do this intuitively, so I don't feel any guilt over intentionally doing it. It's very much a "fake it until you make it" scenario, because our brains in many cases really do work that way. When you pick up a skill, your brain rewires itself in a way that over time the skill requires less conscious thought. Learning to carry conversations followed the same progression for me.