5 ms·

> The other day, someone told me, “I can’t imagine you ever being awkward with people.” I was telling my therapist of several years recently about being uncomf

• RangerScience 11mo ago
  Consider that context heavily impacts how you show up, and in a therapy context, you’re likely to be a lot more relaxed. So I’d bet it’s not that you’re masking that terror when you’re with your therapist, but that it isn’t present.
• em-bee 11mo ago
  i think part of the reason is that our own discomfort feels much stronger than it actually shows to others. the discomfort is inside us, and the people we interact with don't notice because for them it is not a concept. only if you and i meet one or both of us might realize the others discomfort. it's kind of like farting in public. you know you did, and you think everyone noticed, but in reality most didn't
• acuozzo 11mo ago
  > I have zero idea how to make small talk with people I haven't known for years. Forget small talk. Listen-- really listen --and engage with open ears. When it's your turn to talk, offer up an anecdote in reply if it's on topic or take the opportunity to pivot to a related topic you're passionate about. If you do the latter: do. not. info-dump. Give them a chance to play the game I just described to you from their side. Need a cold opener? Get the party going with something you anticipate the majority of the people there would remember. -- You: "Hey, does anybody remember the Blizzard of '96?" Them: "Yeah! I remember they closed down all of Route 9!" You: "Hell yeah they did. My family pulled me down the highway on a snow tube. I've gone tubing every year since. Any tubers here?" Them: "No, but I love snowboarding." You: "Nice. I was briefly obsessed with snowboarding after playing 1080 on the N64, but I was always too chicken-shit to try it. Where do you go snowboarding?" Them: "Vermont. Where do you go tubing?" You: "I used to do it over near that big hill by the library. Ever see that?" -- Arm yourself with personal stories to make situations like this easier. People would rather interact with the guy always telling stories than the visibly-uncomfortable one sitting in the corner.
  • Slow_Hand 11mo ago
    Yes yes yes. You rarely need to DO anything other than listen. Just be a good listener. Maybe identify handles in what they're saying and then occasionally ask them about them: How did that make you feel? Wait, you did what? Why did you do that? What do you enjoy about that?
    • pixl97 11mo ago
      >You rarely need to DO anything other than listen There is a particular amount of risk here, this does set you up to interact with attention vacuums. People that will talk constantly without break nor desire to listen to what you have to say. Over any amount of time (weeks/months) a person that you can have a real two way conversation is needed.
      • Slow_Hand 11mo ago
        In my experience such people are rare. You can always steer the conversation, give your input, tell them (nicely) to stop talking, or - if they're unwilling to take the hint - walk away.
  • zdc1 11mo ago
    I would also add that people generally try too hard with small talk. It's SMALL talk. Tell them about the new brand of jam you put on your toast this breakfast. Ask them what they had for breakfast. Or recount your last trip to the grocery store. Trying too hard kills the fun of the interaction. You're really just getting a ball rolling. Who cares where it starts, just see where it goes. Also, as TFA also mentioned, it's not what you say but how you say it. >80% of the value of the interaction is just (non-verbally) showing you're happy that they're there.
  • deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  • moffkalast 11mo ago
    That seems like the most pointless conversation ever though, neither side really got anything out of it. If you can't infodump or listen to someone else infodump, is it really anything but meaningless pleasantries?
• mindwok 11mo ago
  If you are outwardly meeting lots of people and your therapist is picking up on vibes you aren't awkward, it sounds to me like you might be being quite hard on yourself. Not to suggest your experience isn't valid, but that perhaps your small talk is not the issue!
• browningstreet 11mo ago
  > Working from home since COVID has made my social skills so much worse because I don't get the practice. Opposite for me.. I apply my social efforts to a smaller subset of work demands on my time and social interface, and so I have more energy for gregariousness after work, on my terms, etc.
• ordu 11mo ago
  It is like that to me. I believe that I've just learned the proper motions for some interactions, and I can look to be very social person proficient in communications. It is easy for me, no problem. Till I hit some situation where I need to think fast, trying to figure out what is expected of me now. > I am absolutely terrified in near all social situations It is different for me, I'm absolutely confident in near all social situations, but there is a catch, I actively avoid social situations which make me terrified, and I'm pretty good at it. > I have zero idea how to make small talk with people I haven't known for years. I have never bothered to get the idea of a small talk. I hate it from my teens, I hate to dig in my mind for something I can say when there is nothing to say. Or to voice opinions about things I don't care (and "i don't care about your TV-series, I never watch them" doesn't count as a socially acceptable opinion). So I just avoid such situations overall. Generally if you avoid talking with people tet-a-tete you don't need to talk small. You can just look like you are listening, why calculating ways to leave the place without offending anyone.
• smeej 11mo ago
  The best small talkers say very little. We just ask interested questions about what you've already said. An easy cold opener at parties is, "So how do you know the host?" Then inquire about whether they're still doing that thing, or how long ago it was, or where they did it, whether they learned any cool things--the point is to keep asking questions. Most people love talking about themselves and things they like to do. If you can keep them doing that, they'll remember fondly the "great conversation" you had. Fair warning: It won't get you past the third or fourth interaction, at which point you probably actually need to have something in common, but it's an easy way to get through parties.
  • legerdemain 11mo ago
    You might think so, but a lot of people can tell when you're ELIZA-ing them to death, and they will learn to avoid you. There are a lot of people on HN who want a technical manual for how to party, and a lot of them keep telling each other that the art of conversation is about attentive listening. Can you imagine a conversation between two people practicing attentive listening on each other?
    • mewpmewp2 11mo ago
      Yeah if an awkward person does it they can be called out as if they are interrogating or interviewing. I actually remember trying these tactics when I was teenager... and that is how it came off. I tried so many weird things because I was so unhappy with my social performance. Usually safer way is making observations rather than directly asking or at least continously asking things over and over as if to desperately try to keep the conversation going. But even then if you are awkward, it will still come off awkward and people will try to excuse them out of that situation no matter how much theory you might read online.
    • smeej 11mo ago
      The "will learn to avoid you" part is what I was getting at in my warning at the end. This only gets you through a few interactions. The point of small talk is to get to medium talk. It's not directionless. Medium talk just means you've found a topic that both of you are interested in enough to talk about it for five to ten minutes without getting bored. That you both know the host is one of the few things it's culturally safe to assume anymore. Both of you met the host doing something you like well enough to associate with a person you met doing that thing when you're not doing that thing, so if either of those things happen to be an appropriate subject for medium talk, great. Now you're out of small talk and just "talking to this person I just met at this party about a thing we both like." If you're lucky, it's something you both actually like a lot, and then you have a basis for large talk, and large talk opens the door to casual friendship. If you don't happen to draw a medium or large talk topic out of the gate, that's when you poke around the edges of the small talk, looking for things that could be fodder for medium talk. If you try looking for three or four and aren't getting anywhere, you've still filled the appropriate 5-10 minutes not to seem like a jerk, and now you need a snack, or a drink, and a new conversation partner. It helps a lot if you're genuinely interested in a wide variety of things, enough that you can ask intelligent questions about them, because it increases the likelihood that you can find a shared interest with this person you've just met. That's not just "attentive listening." It's "finding out why someone cares about something interesting to them because you sincerely want to know." If the other person isn't engaging with you at all, isn't trying to find one of these topics with you, they actually just don't want to talk to you. That's how people communicate this. It's not usually personal. They haven't known you long enough for it to be really personal. They may not even consciously realize they don't want to talk to you, but it's still true, and you're doing them a favor when you recognize that and excuse yourself.
• mewpmewp2 11mo ago
  I think I can do small talk, but still it stresses me out and I would rather be alone.
• replwoacause 11mo ago
  Exact same problem I have with being fully remote. It’s turned into near total isolation from everyone except immediate family.
  • HPsquared 11mo ago
    I found there's a transition period where you eventually learn how to reach out via the internet to your remote peers and have good conversations.
• mock-possum 11mo ago
  Oh boy do I ever relate to that - “You seem like a very social person, that seems out of character” - I know that’s how I seem, but god almighty do I not feel that way. I’ve learned that’s its best if I play the role of a social person, but it’s just playing a role. I don’t think anyone but a handful of my closest loved ones really grasp how very close I have always been to running away to live as a hermit in a cabin in the woods.
• balamatom 11mo ago
  >am I really that good at masking that my therapist didn't realize I am absolutely terrified in near all social situations? Or is your therapist attempting to bootstrap a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. when you feel socially overwhelmed, you'd remember that they praised you for being social, and the warm fuzzies of being praised would make you feel less overwhelmed? You know, as the grand maxim of software engineering goes, "whatever works" lmao
• xamuel 11mo ago
  >I have zero idea how to make small talk with people I haven't known for years. Here's a trick, it sounds stupid but it works like magic. Just talk about mundane things that are physically present. Mention the color of the wallpaper. Mention the painting on the wall. Talk about how noisy the room is, or about the food on the plate in front of you. Literally act like you're an image classifier tasked with outputting a text summary of the scene you find yourself in... If you're the cerebral type like I am, you'll feel afraid these topics will bore the other person. But surprisingly, they don't, if the other person is neurotypical. Non-weird people are really weird.