Quote:
Originally Posted by spaceid
I sort of have a theory and was wondering what everyone else thought.
I am terrible at communication. I can't seem to talk about anything serious with people and also have to analyze what people say to see if they are joking, serious, or being sarcastic. I think people are born with the ability to communicate, but we also improve on this skill as we grow up. I personally think my natural ability for communication is not very good. I'm very good at math and physics and find doing these things well comes naturally for me. But just like some people are not the greatest in math no matter how much schooling they have, I feel like I am that same way with communication. No matter how hard I try I have a very hard time understanding people. I don't have a problem making friends, but social situations stress me out very much. The anxiety causes me to keep to myself a lot, but most of the time I prefer some loneliness over the confusion of talking to people.
I wonder whether I just am not good at communication and need to accept it. I have improved, but perhaps I have hit a plateau and just will not improve anymore.
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Hold on just a second. Your written communication is excellent. I understood you very well. I find social situations stressful, but I have no trouble making small talk when I make the effort. I have discovered most people like talking about themselves, and when I make them feel good by listening and asking a few questions or making a comment or two, they come away from our chat thinking I'm a terrific conversationalist. I interact with quite a few people where I work and I can tell many of the people who are somewhat anxious about talking to strangers. They are usually the people I make a point of speaking to. And I find just about all of them have something interesting to say, many of them have good senses of humor, often the next time I see them they initiate the conversation and all of a sudden I realize I know 3 or 4 or 5 more people. So I say it is all right to be quiet sometimes, and a blessing to be able to be kind to someone else who might be even more shy than you are by addressing them and engaging them in a brief conversation. When in doubt, I usually err on the side that people are serious if they say something that could be interpreted in a number of ways. If the person was joking, he or she will likely say so. At that point I'd probably laugh and say "I rarely know when someone is joking!" I believe we are able to increase our understanding and the ability to communicate throughout our lives--I certainly hope so! That means I can continue to improve.
