If, instead, you found an excuse to leave the conversation gracefully (no need for annoyed body language), you can reflect on the conversation later and decide if there is anything in particular I did to cause your aversive reaction. Maybe so, and you want to bring it up with me later.
That can easily be exploited, however. If people know this is your reaction, then they have an easy button to push to exclude you from any conversation where they don’t want your voice heard.
EDIT: I will retract this statement if someone explains what’s wrong with it.
One of the issues with the comment is that it presumes that the people with whom you are interacting socially aren’t trustworthy. To the extend that we want improve culture, we usually want to create environments where people trust each other by default.
Secondly it assumes that people don’t learn. If I have a button that causes me serious discomfort that makes me want to escape a conversation and I understand the button, then I work on the issue and the next time it comes up it might not cause me to leave.
There are also topics which are just boring. It’s probably not hard to find topics that predicatively bore me and that you could bring up to make me want to leave a conservation.
Let’s say I’m talking with Alice and Carol. Alice really wants to talk about some women issue with Alice with no guy around. She could bring up the topic of how the supermodel XY did something and how nobody should do that.
If I find that topic boring and leave the conversation, nothing bad happened. I can spend my time elsewhere. Alice seems to be getting utility from discussing the topic with Carol, so overall utility might be gained by finding a way to request gracefully that I leave the conversation.
If I value staying in that conversation and really want to stay to talk with Alice and Carol I wouldn’t leave the conversation.
One of the issues with the comment is that it presumes that the people with whom you are interacting socially aren’t trustworthy. To the extend that we want improve culture, we usually want to create environments where people trust each other by default.
Secondly it assumes that people don’t learn. If I have a button that causes me serious discomfort that makes me want to escape a conversation and I understand the button, then I work on the issue and the next time it comes up it might not cause me to leave.
That makes very, very good sense. I need to process; I’ll be back later after I’ve finished updating.
That makes a lot of sense indeed. I find that disengaging from a three-way conversation is very different from ending a conversation between two people. I think I perceive such indirections and excuses quite more in the former case, because there they serve the purpose of not disrupting the conversation for the rest of the participants.
That can easily be exploited, however. If people know this is your reaction, then they have an easy button to push to exclude you from any conversation where they don’t want your voice heard.
EDIT: I will retract this statement if someone explains what’s wrong with it.
One of the issues with the comment is that it presumes that the people with whom you are interacting socially aren’t trustworthy. To the extend that we want improve culture, we usually want to create environments where people trust each other by default.
Secondly it assumes that people don’t learn. If I have a button that causes me serious discomfort that makes me want to escape a conversation and I understand the button, then I work on the issue and the next time it comes up it might not cause me to leave.
There are also topics which are just boring. It’s probably not hard to find topics that predicatively bore me and that you could bring up to make me want to leave a conservation.
Let’s say I’m talking with Alice and Carol. Alice really wants to talk about some women issue with Alice with no guy around. She could bring up the topic of how the supermodel XY did something and how nobody should do that.
If I find that topic boring and leave the conversation, nothing bad happened. I can spend my time elsewhere. Alice seems to be getting utility from discussing the topic with Carol, so overall utility might be gained by finding a way to request gracefully that I leave the conversation.
If I value staying in that conversation and really want to stay to talk with Alice and Carol I wouldn’t leave the conversation.
That makes very, very good sense. I need to process; I’ll be back later after I’ve finished updating.
That makes a lot of sense indeed. I find that disengaging from a three-way conversation is very different from ending a conversation between two people. I think I perceive such indirections and excuses quite more in the former case, because there they serve the purpose of not disrupting the conversation for the rest of the participants.