Ask HN: How can I learn to better command people's attention when speaking?

besides the fact that todays society is way less capable to focus on long texts (spoken or read) but trained to constantly consume a permanent stream of quick, short, easy pieces, there may some points you can actually do yourself.

check the way you speak. intelligent people tend to speak like written texts, trying to perfectly formulate their speech, to be correct, not to be misunderstood, to respect complex correlations...thus producing complex monologues, strenous to follow. combined with monotonous sound it can be really narcotic to listeners. natural language is not for that. natural language is for dialogues. also "nerds" tend to focus on matter-of-fact texts, only, while interhuman communication is way more, happens on way more levels. don't underestimate the non-verbal communication! it happens, if talkers are aware of it, want to, or not.

respect your audiance; don't underestimate them. some tend to always explain elaborated every single detail for no reason. this not only produces superfluid text but make your listeners feel you think they're stupid. let them ask if they don't understand. try to involve them into your thoughts, to do the talking more interacting.

is what you're going to tell as important or fascinating to others as it's for you? also my wive fades out often when I talk; I am highly interested in technical stuff. she being from liberal arts is not. but when the topic is real important like relationship stuff she's always full online, and I benefit a lot about the things where she's more improved as me.

besides to simplify your speech, you may loosen it up, consider to put some - few, light - entertainment elements in, maybe even a joke - even in experts talks.

the lesser one speaks, the more focus he or she gets if she or he says something.

this can be elaborated way longer - but this is neither the place, nor right medium to do it.

so, the most important point:

don't take it personal, and above all not too serious. if you start to think it's because people think less of you, disrespect, or reject you, this may lead into depression. and it's wrong. most of the times it's simply people don't want to listen - to anybody. most people don't want to listen, they want to talk. for the rest: even simple rethoric workshops help a lot. check for evening classes or similar.

All I'm getting at is that if there's a silver bullet I haven't found it.

My rough playbook:

- make opportunities for people to talk. Ask them things they can talk about at length. People who feel heard are more likely to listen

- create social opportunities where participation doesn't rely on talking. Cinema, games, walks etc.

- value 1:1 meetings. The dynamics are very different.

- really value groups and people with whom interactions are effortlessly fun. There's a limited supply of people like that in my life, so I really cherish and appreciate them

It often feels like I'm providing more than 1/N of the effort and less than 1/N of the reward. But I concluded that

- I still prefer that to no social interactions

- it might be a perception thing. Everyone always feels like they are doing more than their fair share

As to why I happens to you... Maybe you happen to like people with particular characteristics? Also bear in mind, if there are N people and everyone speaks for 1/N of the time, actually that's very little time per person - but for me for example, instinctively I feel under-heard unless I'm talking 25-30%+ of the time.

As to your wife, you can just directly explain to her that in general you expect to be heard and paid attention to, just as you listen and pay attention to her. Or ask her what about your interaction leads to such attention lapses.