This is meant as helpful, so please don't color it wrong, but the largest percentage of your posts reeference mathematics religiously. You don't often go more than 5 lines talking about non-math things, and when you do it's in regards to emotional issues between you and your family or friends. Granted, this is based primarily on occasional reading of the Sad/Happy threads, and only on this forum, but it's something you do. It's hard to say this without sounding like an asshat, but I hope you understand. I'm just trying to give you some perspective.
People tend to gravitate toward their interestes. I tend to consume my free time with storytelling, gaming, and my studies, with the odd comic or novel reading... as such, when I'm around my friends, it's what I tend to talk about and share. I happily listen to my friends talk about other things, and it's fun to hear about their interests and passions too, but it's not something I can chat about with them since I don't necessarily share their experience.
Even so, if you're not keen to talk about D&D, just tell her. Being passive, and letting it happen only to complain about it to other people on the internet doesn't improve your communication with your friend at all, nor does it resolve the situation. It's a great way to vent the frustration... but it defeats the purpose of you experiencing that frustration; it's your body's way of trying to get you to tackle the problem, by putting a dampener on your worries about how that might make her feel, etc... because if you worry about how others feel too much, you'll never be able to do anything that helps yourself. It's all based on the same, primitive survival behavior, just adapted to the social world we now live in.
Just let her know, respectfully and directly, that you'd like to talk about something other than D&D for a change, and if she acts embarrased or thretened, just let her know it's fine, but that you're just a bit worn out on the subject. If it's a friendship worth its salt, I doubt anything bad will come of it, and it'll help her too since she wouldn't want to frustrate you, and probably doesn't know she has been, especially if you haven't mentioned it.
Anywho, tangentially related to math, I'm apparently transferring into my new school at the lowest rung of the mathematics tree, because it's been 5 years since I've taken a math course. My only hope is to kick ass at the placement test, and test into at least college algebra (ideally I can test into Calculus), or I'll be stuck taking a year of math classes before I can even start on my major.
Blahrgh! Time to remember how to do a darned factorial.
I thank you for the advice. I realize that I tend to mostly talk about mathematics, to be sure, but I'm trying to get away from that. I may be failing, to be sure, but I'm honestly trying. There's a couple of other people I talk to online, and I don't have this problem with them >_> I generally get along fine without mentioning math at all.
... I realize that sounds defensive, but I'll admit that I have a problem.
Mostly, it's that I don't know
how to talk about anything but mathematics in a sustainable way--so I'm attempting to learn how to engage in small talk, but she is being distinctly non-helpful and has informed me that she refuses to turn on any filigree. If that doesn't make too much sense, it basically means that she's not going to ask how I'm doing, what's happening in my life, or about anything that pertains to me whatsoever. She also reserves the right to talk about D&D whenever the hell she chooses (which is, in her words, "whenever she can.").
There isn't much of a way to get around this right now, dude. I don't have the friend-clout to ask her to do something else, nor the recent shared experience to think up another attractive topic of conversation. Right now I'm just watching, waiting, and gathering data until I can find an opening.
Furthermore, the only sort of mathematical discussion in which I engage is directly related to what she, herself, has brought up--perhaps even in
reference to the mathematical puzzles she solves in Dungeons and Dragons. Rather than having a satisfying conversation about crypto (something about which I know almost nothing--it's applied--and she theoretically knows rather a lot) we can only talk about how impressive she is in the context of D&D crypto decodes of the past. She brings up the analysis course she's failing, and then she's not really interested in talking about that, either.
The only other math I've talked about was a passing "damn, I'm lazy and need to get back to doing math." And a brief rant about the wedge product, but that was her fault. She was the one who brought up multiple integration, not me.
So... in any case, we're kind of stuck together right now, because both of us are on the lonely side. I'll figure something out, but I'm a bit pissed--at least the kid I knew with crippling autism could talk about
three things, which generated much pleasant conversation :I And no, none of them was math. She's testably retarded in mathematics.
Yes, I sound extremely defensive, but I'm going a little bit batty, here. In any case, if you want to talk about mathematics in preparation for your exam--or, hell, about storytelling or novels or
anything else--I would much appreciate the opportunity.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9496365 times)