Sigh. I don’t know where to start or what do I need to ask here even at all.
So, I have joined a new workplace and I just don’t know how to interact with people. Most of the time I don’t feel the energy to interact. But being shutdown feels not very socially acceptable behavior nor I feel it would do any good to me.
First two weeks, I didn’t talk with anyone at all. Only one or two interactions here and there that’s about it. After I did manage to get into small group of employees who’ve joined recently and they allowed me to join their social circle.
At this point, I thought I was gonna be okay and will improve at socialising. But even after a month, I still feel this feeling of being subhuman level at socialising. I feel so different, I feel so not normal. I feel everyone are just better at socialising. They got this nailed down somewhere down their lives but somehow I just missed it.
I just don’t know what to do. I don’t have confidence in my voice either so most of the time I try to end conversations with few words. Idk anything really.
Edit: Wow, I didn’t expect this much reception to this post especially since it was very messy how I explained my problem. But you guys surprised me, haha. Thank you all for your advice. I’m reading every one of your replies! I love this community.
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I’d say you’re fighting the wrong enemy. You think everyone else got a skill you missed, but you’re really just comparing how you feel inside to how they look outside. That’s not a fair fight.
Sun Tzu would say to know the ground and know yourself. The ground is a new workplace, so feeling lost is totally normal. Knowing yourself means knowing you’re quiet, low on energy, and unsure of your voice. That doesn’t make you “subhuman” - it’s just information.
And you’ve also done more than you give yourself credit for. Those two weeks of silence were basically scouting, and then you got into a group of other new hires and stayed in it for a month. That’s not nothing.
The real issue is how you’ve been talking to yourself. Calling yourself subhuman is like a general tearing down his own army before the battle. And cutting conversations short probably teaches you that talking is risky, which is the opposite of what you need.
I’d go small. One short, real conversation a day, mostly with people you already know. Ask a question, listen, and let your voice/confidence get stronger by using it. You don’t need to win everyone over, just get comfortable with a few.
On a related note, perhaps consider that you could be neurodivergent (such as autistic). Neurodivergence is not a weakness - it is a difference in mental structure that can come with both strengths and weaknesses, and if (IF) you are neurodivergent, knowing these things about yourself can help you.
Like anything else. Practice!
All those people that are good at socializing have been doing it since they were curious little kids talking to anyone they met and saying silly things.
Seek out low consequence interactions and practice with them. When a cashier is ringing you out, all how their day is going. When you pass someone in public, try out the phrases that you’ll say to co-workers as you pass each other at work.
How was the old workplace?
Maybe this one sucks.
So. There are two issues here.
One is finding topics to talk about. This is what small talk is for. “The weather” is a dumb topic, but it leads to all sorts of things. “Nice weather, did you do anything cool outside on the weekend?” “Bad weather, how did you cope?”
Socializing is like throwing balls back and forth as a game. You try to do something with the “ball” they throw at you and throw a question or a comment or a little story back at them. But also, if you initiate and they don’t want to play the socializing game (because they’re tired or busy or something), that’s it, no socializing.
The voice and speaking thing is something else. Not sure how to advise on that. I don’t understand having “no confidence in your voice”. Do you mean you’re too quiet? Sounds like more of a therapy thing. Maybe a choir or theater hobby group could help you? It’s probably just practice, so you should seek a place where you get that practice and train your voice?
If you work for a for-profit corporation, your peers are all probably feeling soul-crushed and the same as you.
Things are better when you work somewhere that people love their jobs.
I joke around with all the other people my age there about how shit they’re paying us all
You, and pretty much everyone else, are a poor judge of how people see yourself. Nine times out of ten, if you were to tell someone that you are socially awkward, their response would be, “what? No. In the the socially awkward one.”
Why Some People Are Instantly Likeable - Alain de Botton
Read How to win friends and influence people.
Pub
If you’re in Australia, if someone comes around a simple, “Hey, how’s it going?” Will do, social interaction done and dusted. Most of the time the reply will be, “Good yourself?” and you reply, “Yeah good thanks.”
If it doesn’t go beyond that, it’s a satisfactory social engagement completed. If it does, great, go with the flow.
Over the years, I’ve learned the subtle art of not giving a fuck. If someone doesn’t want to engage, all good.
Not giving a fuck is actually the key. It’s harder for some people to get there but that’s where you need to end up.
For some, the idea “no one analyzes your behavior the way you do” helps. For others, it’s “if they don’t like the way you are you shouldn’t care what they think”. It’s different for everybody but getting to the point where a bad social interaction isn’t scary anymore is what you want.
You have to take initiative sometimes. On Mondays ask someone how their weekend was and ask what they did. Towards the end of the week ask people what their weekend plans are. If your American it’s Halloween time ask people about their favorite scary/haloween movies. Just ask people about themselves and ask follow up questions. Don’t wait for people to ask you and don’t go in expecting everyone to ask questions back. If your asking questions and follow up questions you don’t have to worry about feeling normal or different because the focus isn’t on you.
I’ve been in your shoes before. Been there for a long time, years. This is not about knowing how to ask questions. It’s about anxiety and self image.
Maybe you’re seeing yourself as the new guy or as the introvert, the weirdo, the different. Try to not fixate on it.
I have two tips:
1- Accept that you have a personality, some will like it, some won’t. Instead of asking or faking interest, look for the people you find genuinely interesting and share your stuff with them. Small stuff, don’t need to overshare or be egocentric. “Today I saw something on youtube, …” “I don’t drink coffee because one time I…” “This new project seems interesting, I wonder if…”. That’s how the conversation picks up and you develop a connection.
2- There is a hyper-extrovert in the group. Just avoid him. It’s impossible to be around these people, they get frustrated when someone is not engaged in the conversation enough and they’ll start to be mean.
Just ask them questions about the things they like.
Say they like football. “What’s the best game you ever saw?” “What player would you have liked to meet?”
Cooking. “What’s worth spending money on?” “What kind of knives do you like.”
If you listen 90% of the time you’ll get a reputation as a great conversationalist.
yeah but people liking you doesn’t mean you will like them.
being good at socializing isn’t the same as having socialization you find worthwhile or fulfilling.
Unbelievable as it sounds, it is possible to learn to like all sorts of people.
Even more incredible, it’s possible to learn things from all different sorts of folks and enjoy their company.
Most astonishing of all? For thousands and thousands of years, human beings used simply socialization as their primary form of entertainment and enlightenment.
I
There’s people I socialise with that fulfil my needs for socialisation. There’s a few of those.
Then there’s people that I can socialise with just fine, make sure they have a nice time, but it doesn’t fulfil my needs whatsoever. There’s loads of those.
I’m glad this stuff works for you, but you don’t speak for everyone’s social wiring.
If someone told me they didn’t have a medical condition, but they found it a strain to walk around the block, I’d tell them to try to spend a lot more time walking.
That’s certainly one way to brush aside any nuance to how social situations work.
“Then there’s people that I can socialise with just fine, make sure they have a nice time, but it doesn’t fulfil my needs whatsoever. There’s loads of those.”
If you find socializing with many people a strain, remember that you’re the one common factor in all those interactions.
I’m impressed, you’ve managed to insult me whilst also insisting that only your opinion is correct.
I’m humbled by your uncanny social skills. Teach me, sensei.
Depends on your standards. I don’t share your ‘everyone is unique and wonderful’ idealization of people. IME very few people are unique or wonderful, most people are boring and base. For every person I meet who is interesting there are about 50 whose life consists of watching TV and bitching about their wife/husband/kids, who get deeply offended at you if you do other things with your time than either of those two things.
Like I said to the other commenter, if most of your interactions with other people are unsatisfactory you should consider what the common factor in all those conversations.
Yeah, it’s me. I’m not interested in the shit they are interested in, and I don’t empathize with their self-inflected misery that makes up the bulk of their conversational topics.
I’d rather stay home and read a book than listen to someone whine about how their dad is mean to them for not buying them a Porsche, and be told I’m an asshole because I don’t agree that their dad is an asshole and I think they don’t need a Porsche. Plenty of other people though, are happy to have that conversation with them and agree with them their dad is an abusive jerk for not buying them that Porsche. Maybe you are one of those people? maybe you also feel equally aggrieved at your parents or life in general because you don’t have a Porsche? I can’t relate to that, and frankly I think people who feel angry their dad for not buying them a Porsche are shitty people
So literally everyone you know has a dad that can buy them a Porsche?
It all makes sense now.
Not literally, but metaphorically, yes. People where I live think a 150K salary is poverty and that you can’t possibly have a decent life if you don’t own a Porsche and have three homes. and they talk about it all the time, you can’t sit in restaurant or anywhere without people talking about how their life is awful and depressing because they only have 200K in their checking account and they can’t possible feel safe and secure unless it’s 2 million. And they love to talk about how their parents are horrible to them for not giving them six to seven figure sums in gifts.
Find out what your coworker’s nerdy interests are, then do some light research on it.
Then the next time you see them, ask them a bunch of questions about the subject. Try to talk little. Just listen and ask more questions.
People who are nerds about some topic love to talk about that subject. This is the easiest way to break the ice. Show them that you respect their knowledge on the subject, that you’ve learned a lot from them. Thank them. They’ll respect you more too.
After a few weeks of doing this with others, you’ll have their respect and then you can begin to increase the amount that you talk.
Examples: art, sports, cars, bicycles, motorcycles, movies, craft beer, wine, computers, astrology, astronomy, growing food, etc
coworker’s nerdy interests are, then do some light research
Not saying this is bad advice, but it can feel disappointing and invalidating when they don’t reciprocate. “Yeah that’s cool I guess, anyways…” stings a bit when it’s finally your turn to share.
play pretend.
seriously. stop being you, be someone else. look at how other people interact and pretend to be like that.
it works. most people aren’t that sophisticated, they just want you to be mirror and approve of them, and they will like you if you do that. most social interaction is petty and shallow stuff, and you have to learn to embrace it if you want to be good at socializing.
Yeah this is for sure a good situation for “fake it till you make it.”
Just say hi to everyone when you see them. Once a day talk to a different person for awhile, you will find out who is more friendly. I’m not naturally social or outgoing and I’m at at ease with that, but people can interpret it as unfriendly, so I try to communicate the way each person likes, to some extent. It may not come naturally to you but YOU ARE NOT ALONE in that. We just learned by practicing.
Also it can be good to learn to remember peoples names, some people get really offended if you forget their name 😅
