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Stop making every conversation about yourself

thoguhts.substack.com

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Re: Stop making every conversation about yourself

#71

Post by TeMPOraL »

lynx23 wrote: post #41
scrapheap wrote: post #23

I'm more than happy to hear people talking about themselves - I just wish people would remember that they've already told me a story before. The third time you hear about someone's school days when they did X, Y and Z can get a bit boring :D

Oh yeah. I have good conversational memory. Hearing the same story three times is usually when I start to doubt the other persons memory. However, they have a different task to solve. I only have to concentrate on what they are telling me, and that makes repetition detection easier. However, they likely told the same story to numberous people, so they are used to repetitions, but they have no (good) mechanism to dete…

> they likely told the same story to numberous people, so they are used to repetitions, but they have no (good) mechanism to detect when they tell the same story to the same person.

Maybe, but then there was that person I was close enough to, that I knew for a fact I was one of up to three people she told some of the stories to, and yet I'd still hear those stories repeatedly, on a weekly or monthly basis. So at least in that one case, I feel she must've adopted a completely stateless approach to conversation. As in, there wouldn't even be an attempt to recall she told me that exact same story just a few days before, much less that it's at least the fifth time I heard this within last 6 months.

I guess "having your heart on your tongue", as 'teekert puts it, would be an apt description. It's only now that it clicked for me that this is, in fact, a viable approach some people might have naturally adopted. Maybe it's even a superior one, as it keeps the state in the relationship.

Re: Stop making every conversation about yourself

#72

Post by inglor_cz »

notum wrote: post #52

Everything is a frontpage post nowadays. How about: just talk to people and don't be a twat? Enlightening.

That seems to be a very superficial and unactionable piece of advice.

Fat? Just lose weight. Poor? Just make money. Depressed? Just cheer up. Stupid? Just study.

Re: Stop making every conversation about yourself

#73

Post by johnfn »

rockbruno wrote: post #22

There is a balance to this. If you always only listen to others and never speak about yourself, you fail to build connections with them (because they know nothing about you). I had the opposite problem, I made every conversation about them and had to learn to change that in order to be able to make friends.

Yeah, this is so true. I read a lot of advice around how I should ask lots of questions etc when I was younger, and I fell into the opposite trap, which is that I never shared anything because I was letting other people do all the sharing.

The real key is curiosity - do you understand their viewpoint? Really? Really really? Are you just responding to a best guess of what you think it is? But once you really do understand (and they understand that you understand) it's totally fine to talk about some anecdote about yourself if it relates.

Re: Stop making every conversation about yourself

#74

Post by nextlevelwizard »

growing up I distinctly remember one evening, we were hanging out with couple friends/acquaintances and one guy called me out for always being there, but never participating in conversation. I thought that I just didn't have anything smart to contribute to most of the topics. I can't remember how or if that resolved, but from time to time that moment bubbles up in my mind.

Re: Stop making every conversation about yourself

#75

Post by bell-cot »

uxp100 wrote: post #11
JR1427 wrote: post #8

Click on article. Discover I have to sign in to read. No thanks.

Are you sure, or is just the typical substack popover with the continue reading button? (It isn’t really worth going back for, very short with basically no content)

> (It isn't really worth going back for...

Yep. It was trivial for me to read (Default "off" for js, view source) - but still not worth the time.

Re: Stop making every conversation about yourself

#77

Post by mattsieren »

I can highly recommend reading the book “I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships” by Michael S. Sorensen which not only provides useful examples but also paves the way to communicate and emphasize better. It’s been a real life changer for me personally.

Re: Stop making every conversation about yourself

#78

Post by kzrdude »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #71
lynx23 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah. I have good conversational memory. Hearing the same story three times is usually when I start to doubt the other persons memory. However, they have a different task to solve. I only have to concentrate on what they are telling me, and that makes repetition detection easier. However, they likely told the same story to numberous people, so they are used to repetitions, but they have no (good) mechanism to dete…

> they likely told the same story to numberous people, so they are used to repetitions, but they have no (good) mechanism to detect when they tell the same story to the same person. Maybe, but then there was that person I was close enough to, that I knew for a fact I was one of up to three people she told some of the stories to, and yet I'd still hear those stories repeatedly, on a weekly or monthly basis. So at leas…

I feel like I have a hard time remembering who I've told what story. I don't want to repeat myself, but I want to tell the recent story I have on my mind (because I like it somehow).

Noticing that I'm repeating myself makes me feel old and congnitively unsound (I am hopefully not, I'm just shy of 40 ys old).

Re: Stop making every conversation about yourself

#79

Post by ant6n »

boerseth wrote: post #43

I often look back at a comment I've written or email I've sent, and am annoyed at the number of paragraphs that start with "I ...". This one included! I think it looks odd when it's every single paragraph, so in extreme cases I will try to rewrite some of those sentences. With this metric in mind and considering the topic of the article, I think this comment section makes for an ironic and amusing skim. Although I gu…

I see what you did there in the second paragraph, hiding the „I“ after some participle clause. Not sure it works this way.

Re: Stop making every conversation about yourself

#80

Post by TeMPOraL »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #44
rayxi271828 wrote: post #29

Interesting. I had to make a conscious effort to go the other way around, i.e.: to talk more about me. I grew up reading too many books aimed at the extroverts among us ("There's a reason we have 1 mouth and 2 ears!"; "Silence is golden!"). It's hard to underestimate missed opportunities because a shy introvert (me back then) took and (mis)applied advice meant for extroverts who were already unable to stop talking ab…

To add to your experience, there's also a group of people that grew up and lived their adult life so isolated that they will start dumping on anyone that shows a little interest, smothering them. I know I'm guilty of that sometimes.

Then there are those among them with enough self-reflection to find a therapist to subject to the story of their life, instead of some random civilians. But when even the therapist can't keep up and starts being sucked down the whirlpool of criss-crossing plot threads, what then?
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