- #1
Adyssa
- 203
- 3
I'd like to improve my conversational skills - I'm kind of anti-social, and it's dawning on me that I am going to die alone if I don't start talking to people. I've reached this strange place in my life, and I don't quite know how I got here. I used to be, well, a bit shy but I could start a conversation with a stranger and more than likely not implode from awkwardness. These days, however, I can barely bring myself to speak to an aquaintance, and when I do I just stumble over my own ********. I'm pretty sure my friends think I'm mental, and I think they're not entirely wrong.
Some things I've noticed:
My interests are worlds apart from my close friends, and mostly a long way away from various people that I see day to day. I like computer programming. I like fringe electronic music (I actually like all kinds of music, but none of it is particularly mainstream, low-slung blues, jazz fusion, prog rock, strange, beautiful music of all kinds and I have a very large (vinyl!) record collection that is dear to me). I like reading books on the world wars, and popular physics, and other interesting things. I love great movies, and I spend time tracking down ones that I would like to see before I die. I don't have much time for .. shall I say "consumable" movies, not that I hate them but they don't give me any satisfaction. I don't watch television (at all, except for the odd doco, or Bear Grylls lol). My (close and long-standing) friends like awful (IMO) hip-hop music, don't like reading, spend their evenings watching sitcoms, have shallow relationships with great girls who invariably move on. I love them dearly, but they are killing my brain.
Anyway, small talk with my friends invariably wanders between making fun of each other, making fun of stupid things in life, and discussing what we will do when we have more than $100 between us (i.e. we talk about nothing). Because I avoid television, that often limits my part in the conversation if it moves in that direction. Occassionally one of us (well them) will meet a girl (I don't meet girls >.>) and the conversation might expand to include discussions of issues relating to girls (!) but for the most part, we take the piss. We all have a pretty wild (dry, black, your mother wouldn't approve) sense of humour, which is great, but there's not much else holding it together.
I've all but stopped going out because it's horribly awkward. I hate talking to people because I have nothing to say. I tend to keep my interests to myself as I hate coming across as some hipster geek, passionate about music that has GLO-RAVE connotations (>.>), computer nerd. I'm interested in other people's passions but I don't know how to ask about them without getting past the "so, how's this weather we're having?", "what do you do for a dayjob?", "do you like ... stuff?"
Uni is the same. I'm in my 2nd year now, and I don't know more than about 4 people in my course, and even those people I struggle to maintain a conversation with beyond our coursework.
I feel like I'm fading away! :(
So my question is, what do you talk about with someone you don't know well? How do you get past the fluff and into the things that are interesting to talk about?
Some things I've noticed:
My interests are worlds apart from my close friends, and mostly a long way away from various people that I see day to day. I like computer programming. I like fringe electronic music (I actually like all kinds of music, but none of it is particularly mainstream, low-slung blues, jazz fusion, prog rock, strange, beautiful music of all kinds and I have a very large (vinyl!) record collection that is dear to me). I like reading books on the world wars, and popular physics, and other interesting things. I love great movies, and I spend time tracking down ones that I would like to see before I die. I don't have much time for .. shall I say "consumable" movies, not that I hate them but they don't give me any satisfaction. I don't watch television (at all, except for the odd doco, or Bear Grylls lol). My (close and long-standing) friends like awful (IMO) hip-hop music, don't like reading, spend their evenings watching sitcoms, have shallow relationships with great girls who invariably move on. I love them dearly, but they are killing my brain.
Anyway, small talk with my friends invariably wanders between making fun of each other, making fun of stupid things in life, and discussing what we will do when we have more than $100 between us (i.e. we talk about nothing). Because I avoid television, that often limits my part in the conversation if it moves in that direction. Occassionally one of us (well them) will meet a girl (I don't meet girls >.>) and the conversation might expand to include discussions of issues relating to girls (!) but for the most part, we take the piss. We all have a pretty wild (dry, black, your mother wouldn't approve) sense of humour, which is great, but there's not much else holding it together.
I've all but stopped going out because it's horribly awkward. I hate talking to people because I have nothing to say. I tend to keep my interests to myself as I hate coming across as some hipster geek, passionate about music that has GLO-RAVE connotations (>.>), computer nerd. I'm interested in other people's passions but I don't know how to ask about them without getting past the "so, how's this weather we're having?", "what do you do for a dayjob?", "do you like ... stuff?"
Uni is the same. I'm in my 2nd year now, and I don't know more than about 4 people in my course, and even those people I struggle to maintain a conversation with beyond our coursework.
I feel like I'm fading away! :(
So my question is, what do you talk about with someone you don't know well? How do you get past the fluff and into the things that are interesting to talk about?