I've already discovered that four short conversations gets me up to "friendly acquaintanceship," but that's already pretty tiring and most of my repetoire is basically bad math jokes and asking about majors.
The thing is that my "trying hard to get along with people" looks like most people's "don't give much of a fuck." I figure I've made progress if I answer "so, how are you" in a timely manner, rather than just saying "errrrr" as I try to remember the set social response to that, or, worse, say "thank you" because I've vaguely realized that someone just did something for me.
You speak of conversation like it was a simple input-output processes, with stock greetings, questions, and responses. If this is what you try in person, it's no wonder it tires you! As the image macros say, you're doin' it wrong. I know you don't view people as things to operate and make use of, so why would you treat them that way in communication? Unless you have something to say or ask for some reason, it's an empty, mechanical thing, empty of purpose. On the same note, if you want a friend, you do that by expressing interest in who they are. Try talking like you post here, and you'll probably feel like the exchange is more valuable. If that means taking time to organize your thoughts, or reaching out with some empathy to gauge your conversational partner's opinions and interests, go for it.
Yeah, friends are like herds. Do herds say "come join if you have basically nothing to offer us but a bunch of factual data and a near-endless font of math cultural information?"
Maybe I'm just living a uniquely blessed and charmed existence, because that is exactly the case. I ask questions I wonder about, talk about things I actually have an interest in, and discuss things I feel are important. Clearly everyone I meet aren't going to be receptive to my every interest, so I have a repertoire of them to share situationally, including nature and the environment, physics, space, independent games, foreign films, cooking, dramatic theater, Klezmer music, fantasy novels, and so on. I know for a fact that you can talk about more than your major too, so limiting yourself that way makes no sense. If people aren't receptive to any of my interests, I can either listen to them talk about some of theirs, or if it's really bad just use pleasant stock conversation until I can get my leave on, and get on with looking for people who care.
The reason why my post was talking about "conversation" was because I was talking about "conversation," not about "chattiness." But whatever. That's okay, too.
Got to call you on this. You specifically used the words "chitchatty conversations", which implies talking about the weather or whatever, for the sole purpose of making empty words leave your mouth. Despite what you meant, I only know what you say. Also the snappiness there only hurts your ability to hold a conversation, but you know that already.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9428911 times)