I get the impression that there is something extremely broken in my social skills system (or lack there of). Something subtle, since professionals have been unable to point this out to me.
I find that my interests rarely overlap with anyone else’s enough to sustain (or start, really) conversation. I don’t feel motivated to force myself to look at whatever everyone else is talking about in order to participate in a conversation about it.
But it feels like there’s something beyond that. I was given the custom title of “the confusenator” on one forum. I was straight-up told I was boring when I interjected in a round of bickering that interrupted a debate (also on an internet forum). I find myself being ignored in many places, even those specifically narrow enough in focus to increase interest overlap. (No, I don’t post enough at LW for me to count it at this point in time.)
In real life, I physically can’t do the all-important eyecontact thing, and I’m too selfconscious/anxious/whatever to use a great deal of volume when speaking. And I can’t see lots of things that convey important information about whether someone is available for talking to / nonverbal cues / etc. So real life, I kinda understand.
But none of those apply to the internet, and I still wind up stuck in my own little world there.
I get the impression that you try to list a few facts that you consider to be true instead of trying to make a point. It might help you to edit your writing to remove words that don’t help you to make the point that you want to make.
When it comes to real life conversations, lack of interest overlap is rarely the main problem. Even if you know nothing about a topic you can have a conversation where the other person explains you something about the topic.
The problem is more emotional. If you are anxious than it’s hard for a conversation to flow.
*For disclosure, my own writing isn’t the clearest either. It’s still a lot better than it was in the past.
If you supply a sample or two of your writing in context from other forums, perhaps it will be easier for someone here to see a pattern of what you’re doing.
I get the impression that there is something extremely broken in my social skills system (or lack there of). Something subtle, since professionals have been unable to point this out to me.
I find that my interests rarely overlap with anyone else’s enough to sustain (or start, really) conversation. I don’t feel motivated to force myself to look at whatever everyone else is talking about in order to participate in a conversation about it.
But it feels like there’s something beyond that. I was given the custom title of “the confusenator” on one forum. I was straight-up told I was boring when I interjected in a round of bickering that interrupted a debate (also on an internet forum). I find myself being ignored in many places, even those specifically narrow enough in focus to increase interest overlap. (No, I don’t post enough at LW for me to count it at this point in time.)
In real life, I physically can’t do the all-important eyecontact thing, and I’m too selfconscious/anxious/whatever to use a great deal of volume when speaking. And I can’t see lots of things that convey important information about whether someone is available for talking to / nonverbal cues / etc. So real life, I kinda understand.
But none of those apply to the internet, and I still wind up stuck in my own little world there.
Surely I’m missing something?
Perhaps more practice?
Your writing isn’t very clear.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ou/if_you_demand_magic_magic_wont_help/8o31 is a good example. To me it isn’t clear what point you want to make with that post.
I get the impression that you try to list a few facts that you consider to be true instead of trying to make a point. It might help you to edit your writing to remove words that don’t help you to make the point that you want to make.
When it comes to real life conversations, lack of interest overlap is rarely the main problem. Even if you know nothing about a topic you can have a conversation where the other person explains you something about the topic.
The problem is more emotional. If you are anxious than it’s hard for a conversation to flow.
*For disclosure, my own writing isn’t the clearest either. It’s still a lot better than it was in the past.
If you supply a sample or two of your writing in context from other forums, perhaps it will be easier for someone here to see a pattern of what you’re doing.