Lemmy, I have a problem. I fuck up social interactions incredibly frequently, far more often and severely than others do.
I will be speaking what I feel is casually and consistently, and the person I am speaking with will suddenly have a significant change in their demeanor and speech. It both makes me feel bad that they react this way and frustrates me that I made an incorrect interaction.
This doesn’t really occur with people I don’t know well. Rather, it occurs with the people I spend the most time with…my coworkers. I am forced to interact with them all day due to my specific job. With one of them, I would consider them to be my only friend.
I have noticed that they all have specific unspoken “triggers” of speech or behavior that I need to minimize or hide when in front of them. But there are always instances where I cannot recognize a pattern. And even when I can kind of figure out a pattern, I sometimes fail to implement it.
You know the phrase, “think before you speak” right? But how the hell does one apply that to large swaths of conversations that occur all day long? It would be incredibly jarring and odd for me to make large pauses between each and every sentence I make. Is there a better shortcut to this?
Here are some examples of “off limits” speech/behavior patterns that I have noticed among various people:
Coworker 1 - speech that shows mental weakness (esp anxiety), making a workplace error, anxious body language (this one is particularly difficult)
Coworker 2 - speech that shows mental weakness (esp anxiety), statements that are too negative, offering to let them leave work early
Coworker 3 - statements that are too negative, mentioning my dad, statements that may give them too much anxiety (sometimes difficult to discern), talking about coworker 1 too much in a negative way (even tho we both think coworker 1 is a removed)
Coworker 3 also has repeatedly told me that I can come to them with issues, but they always get upset if I say something too negative. They seem to occasionally ask me trick questions too like “are you ok?” even though I know I’m not supposed to answer truthfully. I don’t understand this behavior or how to deal with it.
Coworker 4 - talking too much in general about any topic (they would just prefer I shut up tbh unless there is zero work)
Yes, there is some overlap among them, but they still have a lot of differences that are difficult for me to discern.
I mean, I guess the “easiest” solution would to try to never talk again outside of any speech that is immediately necessary to do my job. Coworker 4 essentially does this. But it is tricky to do and a bit depressing. As a human (I think??), I am unfortunately a social creature. And it does get a bit frustrating that I can’t be authentically me.
Would appreciate some guidance. Sorry for the long post and thanks if you stuck around this far!
It is significantly more acceptable to slow down and stop talking than a lot of people think
I’m fighting the same battle, because I am in a quasi-leadership role now, and I have to say the examples of positivity and optimism, when my instinctive reactions to most things are rolling my eyes and sighing because “Ugh, not this shit again.” Is going to be an uphill battle. The funny part is, I’m never actually upset. The more problems get thrown my way, the more excited I get to solve them. Unfortunately I have this very odd habit of presenting my excitement in a way that everyone else in the world understands to be frustration and negativity.
It’s also a lot less noticeable than it seems in your head when you pause. Taking that extra minute to edit a sentence in your head adds pauses that can also help to draw in people listening.
Be less negative, don’t talk behind people’s backs, leave coworker 4 alone
I first read this as “Don’t talk about people’s backs” and I was in agreement with that cus that would be creepy. lol
Caffeine time…
The smartest people I’ve ever met pause for at least five seconds before answering direct questions. Some for much longer. There’s a Supreme Court justice who I’m told pauses for like 25 seconds or more anytime she’s asked a question.
I once had a boss like this and when he finally said something it was always “it depends”. I often wanted him to give a simple, quick, direct answer but I eventually realized things were more complicated than that. It reminded me of the Tolkien quote: “Go not to the Elves for counsel for they will answer both no and yes.”
I can be like this sometimes, but I normally try to let people know that the dogs are whirring.
- Hmm, good question…let me think…
- How can I put this?
- What’s the phrase I’m looking for?
I’ll especially do this if I’m speaking to people whose first language is something else, as I’ll want to answer the question without resorting to idioms or slang. No point telling a Frenchman that the situation is a bit of a dog and pony show.
Your coworkers are not your therapists. If they say “are you ok?” you’re not required to answer them truthfully. You can just say “I’m fine, thanks” and then ask how they are doing or whatever. Be careful what you say to others in the workplace. It can be used against you. Your coworkers are not your friends. (Generally speaking. It can happen, of course. But you should still remain professional at work.) Some can actively be looking for any excuse to screw you over so they can get ahead in their job.
As for “think before you speak” I think of that as “think about what your response will be before saying it.” You don’t have to think while speaking. That shit can trip you up big time. Think of conversation as a round of tennis or ping pong. It’s just a back and forth.
And yes, in the workplace it’s a good idea to keep a lot of shit to yourself. Remember that they have their own stuff to deal with. Often people are just being polite when they ask you what’s wrong or whatever. They might just be catching bad vibes and are wanting to know it’s going to affect them. Or they’re drama llamas and want to soak it up or, again have ammo to use against you later.
You can be yourself at the workplace without spilling your guts out or making yourself vulnerable to everyone. You’ve already shared your solution: Often you should keep things to yourself and just talk about work-related things. Leave any political opinions at the door. Keep social interactions as shallow as possible if it’s not work related. Social stuff like food, the weather, what you saw on Netflix, etc. Shallow stuff that doesn’t offend anyone or expose your belly to them, etc.
Welcome to the adult working life of walking on eggshells. It is indeed taxing.
Also, I bet it is more socially acceptable to take a beat and think before speaking than you think. I learned that for myself and it helped. It’s not as jarring as you might think. It can even make people appreciate what you say more. If it’s really taking long, you can stall a bit with some “I need to think about that one, hmm” lines.
On thinking before you speak, it means this: if something is said that makes you want to respond right away, when you sense a physical reaction (of hurt, anger, sadness or wanting retribution), or you are in a situation where what you say matters a lot (an interview, a meeting with higher-ups in a company etc.), it’s a mental cue for you to block immediate responses which can cause you to run your mouth in ways you later regret. Instead, you actively make an effort to listen more, and consider your situation and the other people’s situation before responding. So it’s not a 15 second pause after each sentence, but a 15 seconds you take while the other person is going on about whatever before you inject yourself into a conversation or before you make your point when it’s your turn.
On interacting with your coworkers, they’re not your therapists, so you can talk about what’s new and the fortunate and unfortunate things that happen to you over the course of a week, but the basic idea is to avoid making your problems their problems when you do.
I’m of a more positive nature but I love to info-dump on my coworkers about my favourite topics. I try to offset that by involving them and asking their opinion, showing them cool things, and then taking the turn to let them discuss their own intersts and thoughts on things, and follow up with that. And I try to get a sense if they aren’t interested in talking at a particular moment or are losing interest in the middle of a conversation. EQ skills are about taking that pulse.
If you need a place to start: The idea is give and take, and it should be in relatively equal amounts. Would you be able to tell me what has been on the minds lately of Coworkers 1-3? Or have you spent most of the conversation about yourself and your issues? (#4 doesn’t sound interested much in sharing their personal life, so you don’t have to probe them on it).
This is an awesome response. When you think about it, a similar saying is “Read the room.” While not entirely 1:1, it’s a similar theme of employing empathy.
Learn to respect yourself and stop caring what others think. You’re there to work. Get shit done, quit wasting time worrying about other people’s feelings that are out of your control.
You’re thinking too much already. They might not even be reacting negatively to what you’re saying but you’re so insecure that you read into stuff that isn’t your fault. Or maybe you’re going too deep for work place conversations. Like talking about personal stuff that is not what most people wanna here. Honestly, based on what you posted, you are a weird guy that has weird thinking. It’s okay, no judgemental because I am too. But what I’ve found works with people is too just fit in with them. Don’t air your dirty laundry out too them and just talk about mainstream stuff. If it’s something you think might be what the average person isn’t into, just don’t talk about it.
Yes, they accuse me of “overthinking” things a lot in general. But they don’t realize that I have to do this in order to try to do things more correctly. Lack of enough thought is what gets me into these kinds of situations, you know?
I’m definitely not imagining most of these. If everyone is happily smiling and chatting away, and then I make a mistake which causes a sudden change in facial expression, curt response, and the sudden end of a flowing conversation, then it’s not my imagination.
Coworker 3 is the most lenient/forgiving of them, but issues still arise with them too.
Give me an example of what you said.
Most people say ummm … uuuh … between words because they were too quick to answer and need to think. It’s a fine line though, which you need to develop over time for yourself. My boss makes very long pauses before he answers and looks kinda frozen while he thinks. It’s a bit confusing but I appreciate that he cares about what we are talking about.
Look up Charisma On Demand on Youtube, it might have some interesting topics for you. Just don’t try to forcefully apply everything. Everyone is a different character with their own quirks and that’s good.
The saying „Think before you speak“ I believe is not meant for during conversations specifically but for when you give your opinion on something and it’s based more on emotion than facts.
I always say that thinking before speaking is a bit like wiping before going number two.
Maybe that’s why I don’t have any friends.
If we have a toilet paper shortage, I’m blaming you. lol
“Coworker 4 - talking too much in general about any topic (they would just prefer I shut up tbh unless there is zero work)”
I am this person lol without knowing them at all I can say at least for this type of person I think the best thing to do is just be direct about work stuff, get to the point right away after the initial pleasantries of initiating the conversation. If they’re anything like me they might actually dislike conversation for similar reasons that you feel anxious. I just don’t have much to say other than strictly work related business and it stresses me out to be stuck in a “meaningless” conversation.
If coworker 1 really is “a bitch” then there isn’t all that much you can do, just treat her similar to coworker 4 and just accept that she might be judging you for stupid reasons. That’s more of a “her problem” than a you problem. As they say “you can’t make everyone like you.” but that doesn’t have to mean there’s anything “wrong” with you, some people just don’t mesh well.
Yeah with coworker 1 I try to interact minimally with. It works out ok. So I mostly talk to coworkers 2 and 3 but I still tuck up with them all the time.
Nah, coworker 4 isn’t anxious. She just wants us to work as quickly as possible so she can leave as quickly as possible. I don’t talk to her much either tbh. It can be a bit frustrating when she sometimes gets upset when I am chatting with a different coworker (because she wants me to shut up and not talk to anyone at all).
You’re descriptions kind of make your coworkers like NPCs. If you want to have better conversations you should probably get to know them better as people. That can allow you to understand the why of their particulars and eventually guide your conversations more organically.
I mean, forgive me for not explaining every detail of all of my coworkers lives in this thread. The post is already stupidly long and I was trying to get to the meat and potatoes of it for those that might be able to help.
I know some of them quite well and I am constantly learning new things about them. I can speak organically with most of them (except coworker 4), and often do so at length with coworkers 2 and 3. But my mistakes are still frequent enough and significant enough that it causes major problems. I am constantly learning what not do to, but there are seemingly infinite permutations of conversation and infinite ways things can and do go wrong, even when I find some of the patterns.
You don’t need to give explicit details of your coworkers’ lives, but from your writing it really seemed to me that you were more interested in mechanically optimizing conversation. This isn’t necessarily a bad perspective, but people already do that organically by understanding each other more and learning their history. The route of good conversation follows logically from there through empathy.
Well yeah so I kind of wrote the post in a detached manner because I am trying to mechanically optimize conversation. Doing things organically doesn’t work out for me even though my heart is in the right place and I just want to get along with people and for us to be happy.
I’m 30. People telling me that things will work out once you get to know people better do not at all understand that I have spent many many years doing this and yet I still fail horribly multiple times per week. I’m not some teen with a still developing brain. This is the way I am and I want to figure out how to improve and be more correct in my interactions. If it hasn’t organically happened in 30 years, it’s not going to organically happen now. So I need a different approach. Getting to know people and your heart being in the right place aren’t the magic solution for me.
I have just never been skilled in that manner. So I would like to try to break it down into a more logical way where I could actually work on it. All too often I get frustrated that no one has written a guidebook on every facet of human interaction.
Social skills, as the name implies, are meant to be trained, maintained, and expanded over a lifetime so don’t discount yourself because you feel like you’re too old or have tried and failed for too long. Have you considered seeking behavioral therapy? Perhaps you’re not picking up on the myriad non-verbal social cues that could help you better inform your conversations. Behavioral therapy can help identify where you’re lacking and give you the opportunity to practice skills and receive feedback from a professional.
I sincerely wish you the best of luck.
If you are in a quick conversation with someone, you might feel the pressure to avoid any stretches in silence. Try to not feel pressured. Pausing for 15 seconds isn’t feasible, but one or two seconds helps a lot…
It breaks your train of thought, allows you to catch enough things—doesn’t have to be all—to formulate a measured response. If you want to go one step further, try not creating a response in advance and wait for your turn to speak. Instead, listen to what your conversation partner says and restate a quick summary in your own words before you advance the topic.
If I had the health insurance and/or the money, I wouldn’t ask pseudonymous internet randos, I would ask a psychologist/therapist/councilor.
I had my bouts where I tried a lot of therapy. Therapists weren’t overly helpful to me but were good at quickly draining my bank account. Many of them would say “oh there’s nothing wrong if you do XYZ in a social context” and I would try to explain why it is wrong, similar to how I’ve demonstrated to you guys.
You tried therapy and that’s good the problem is trying to find a GOOD therapist is very difficult.MOST of them shouldn’t be a therapist they can only regurgitate what they were told in class. They can’t think outside of the box and think critically.
I respect the fact that you are trying to find an answer to solve your problem.
You even gave examples of different coworker situations.
Sadly I don’t have an answer for you. The only thing I can say is don’t give up.
Maybe sit down with one of them one on one outside of work. Mention what happened earlier and that you noticed a serious change in their body language and apologize then say you want to do better. Then ask for their input on what you did wrong. Maybe they can help.
They just get upset with me if I do that unfortunately. I’m never supposed to talk to them about things when I make them upset.
Then it sounds like you work with assholes. If person a sits down with person b and says I’m sorry about what happened I want to do better. Please help me. Let’s talk about what I did wrong so I can improve myself. Only an asshole says no.
There is an obvious exception to that statement, if you are sitting there and yelling at them or being incredibly incredibly aggressive during the initial conversation. They might not be receptive right away. But if you come back, say the next day and apologize and say look, I wanna do better know I was in the wrong, but I need your help to improve. Can we talk so I can make sure I never do that again? A human being would say yes a good person will say yes let’s figure this out an asshole will say no.
It’s called compassion and sympathy. Sadly it’s also something that is sorely lacking in the United States and worldwide right now.
I guess here’s a question for you. Is this happening at multiple jobs or is it happening just at the current job?
Think further before, don’t wait for the middle of a conversion. Run potential future conversations through in your mind before you even see these coworkers and decide in advance how you’ll respond to various topics so you don’t have to do it in the moment.
You can do this in front of a mirror to practice the body language you want to project, as well.
By chance, are you located in the Midwest? Or neurodivergent? Because Midwesterners really aren’t comfortable with most kinds of explicit negative emotional displays, and there are very specific ways to indicate negative emotions appropriately. And IME most NTs are distressed by the way NDs tend to express anxiety.
If I could sum up all of what I’ve said into one sentence, it’d be: Stop displaying anxiety to your coworkers.
Oh God…how can I possibly hope to think of every single permutation of conversation??? It sounds like I would be thinking about conversations indefinitely if I did that. Any tips???
No, I am not in the Midwest. I did have a therapist ask me once if I was neurodivergent and I said no. I don’t think I fall in line with anything like autism or anything like that. I do struggle with human interaction but everything else about me seems pretty “neurotypical”. Even in conversation, I actually am able to carry on normally and understand a lot of social cues, I think, as well as I have the ability for eye contact when I am not anxious. I struggle a bit with anxiety and told someone that I struggle sometimes to order food at places because of that. That person told me “that’s weird because you seem totally normal” in a non sarcastic way. It made me feel good actually lol and like I’m very normal passing haha.
It sounds like I would be thinking about conversations indefinitely if I did that. Any tips???
No, that’s pretty much it, think about conversations indefinitely. After a while it’s pretty automatic, people aren’t all that different from each other.
