I’ve heard about people who find talking extremely anxiety-provoking, while communicating by writing is easy and comfortable for them. I expect someone like that would have the sort of social skills mismatch you’re describing. They aren’t faking the skills on-line, they have a disability making it hard to use them in person.
I have a (fading, but still present) hang-up about phone conversations. They’re harder for me than either in-person communication or text. You don’t have the time to think things through that you do on IM, but you also don’t get facial cues to help you. So my phone conversations are almost always short, and of the form “Hi, I’m at the train station.”
I’ll agree and add that as well as anxiety another limiting factor for in person socialisation is time. Processing in real time, and particularly in real time in a group context, is the hardest part of the socialising task. They can make the perfect response, just 5 seconds too late.
I’ve noticed that I’m like this in some situations but not others. Specifically, I feel like I have plenty of time in social situations to work through potential word choices and optimize for my specific listener, but trying to think of arguments in a debate feels like walking through molasses.
Realizing that gave me a lot more sympathy for people who can rule an intellectual conversation but are terrible at predicting how their listeners will interpret what they say in social contexts. I hadn’t quite internalized the idea that it might just be really hard.
I’ve noticed that I’m like this in some situations but not others. Specifically, I feel like I have plenty of time in social situations to work through potential word choices and optimize for my specific listener, but trying to think of arguments in a debate feels like walking through molasses.
That’s a good point. By contrast arguments (or at least rational reasoning—rhetoric fits a different category) come seemingly pre-formed from my intuition for free. Social political reasoning takes actual effort. That isn’t to say I can’t do it in real time, just that I like to make sure ahead of time that I am in a good state for socialising in order to get the most from it. In the ideal case that means I have spent an hour in the gym earlier in the day, are reasonably well rested and possibly consumed some aniracetam, modafinil or at least caffeine. I find those all raise the level of social ability that comes free from my intuition without (potentially time-delaying) effort.
One way I like to look at differences in abilities in general is not so much the absolute level of competencies but in which order they decay under negative influence such as sleep deprivation, stress or chemical interference. In my case it seems to be:
“Everything else” → consciousness → rational argument → life itself.
Although I haven’t tested the last one. I apologize ahead of time if after I die zombie-wedrifid reanimates and starts explaining why it is rational to “let him eat your brains”.
I’ve heard about people who find talking extremely anxiety-provoking, while communicating by writing is easy and comfortable for them. I expect someone like that would have the sort of social skills mismatch you’re describing. They aren’t faking the skills on-line, they have a disability making it hard to use them in person.
I have a (fading, but still present) hang-up about phone conversations. They’re harder for me than either in-person communication or text. You don’t have the time to think things through that you do on IM, but you also don’t get facial cues to help you. So my phone conversations are almost always short, and of the form “Hi, I’m at the train station.”
I’ll agree and add that as well as anxiety another limiting factor for in person socialisation is time. Processing in real time, and particularly in real time in a group context, is the hardest part of the socialising task. They can make the perfect response, just 5 seconds too late.
I’ve noticed that I’m like this in some situations but not others. Specifically, I feel like I have plenty of time in social situations to work through potential word choices and optimize for my specific listener, but trying to think of arguments in a debate feels like walking through molasses.
Realizing that gave me a lot more sympathy for people who can rule an intellectual conversation but are terrible at predicting how their listeners will interpret what they say in social contexts. I hadn’t quite internalized the idea that it might just be really hard.
That’s a good point. By contrast arguments (or at least rational reasoning—rhetoric fits a different category) come seemingly pre-formed from my intuition for free. Social political reasoning takes actual effort. That isn’t to say I can’t do it in real time, just that I like to make sure ahead of time that I am in a good state for socialising in order to get the most from it. In the ideal case that means I have spent an hour in the gym earlier in the day, are reasonably well rested and possibly consumed some aniracetam, modafinil or at least caffeine. I find those all raise the level of social ability that comes free from my intuition without (potentially time-delaying) effort.
One way I like to look at differences in abilities in general is not so much the absolute level of competencies but in which order they decay under negative influence such as sleep deprivation, stress or chemical interference. In my case it seems to be:
“Everything else” → consciousness → rational argument → life itself.
Although I haven’t tested the last one. I apologize ahead of time if after I die zombie-wedrifid reanimates and starts explaining why it is rational to “let him eat your brains”.
Voted up because degradation under adverse circumstances is an important concept.