We already know that because introverts don't get energized by interpersonal interaction and do get energized by being alone, doing unto others as we would have them do unto us doesn't work when socializing with the other 75% of the population.
It just occurred to me that it also doesn't work in the basic art of conversation.
A general rule of making conversation is that you should ask the other person about themselves, because people like talking about themselves. But this doesn't work on me. I mean, it will do for keeping the conversation going, but I get no particular pleasure from telling someone I just met that I live in Toronto and I work as a translator, yeah, straightforward French to English, but I also speak Spanish and German and Polish to varying degrees. So because I don't get anything out of telling them about myself, it doesn't occur to me that they'll get anything out of telling me about themselves so I keep forgetting to ask. Conversely, when it does occur to me to ask someone about something it's generally because I am genuinely interested, so I tend to subconsciously assume that if someone asks me about something it's because they're genuinely interested, so then I prattle on. So as a result, I come across as a standoffish egomaniac, when I am in fact just forgetting myself and doing unto others. I am working on answering inquiries about myself in a cursory manner and then reversing the question to the other person, but it doesn't come naturally and right now I've sort of got a "Oh, right, I'm supposed to ask about you too!" vibe going on.
In real life (as opposed to artificial small-talk interactions) if I have something to tell, I only get pleasure out of telling it to someone who's close to me, and with people who are close to me I can generally just walk up to/call/email them and launch into a story. You can totally go to your mother or partner or best friend and just dive right into what happened at work today. If it's a small anecdote that isn't of particular interest or particularly personal, I just blog it and people either read it or ignore it, no big deal. But it's not like I'm sitting on a supply of stuff that I'd get pleasure out of telling to a stranger or random acquaintance if only an opportunity would present itself. I suppose if I didn't blog my random anecdotes I would be, but my random anecdotes don't like to sit quietly inside my brain and tend to blurt themselves out at inappropriate moments if I don't get them blogged.
1 comment:
"So because I don't get anything out of telling them about myself, it doesn't occur to me that they'll get anything out of telling me about themselves so I keep forgetting to ask."
I think you just explained something about my partner that I didn't previously understand.
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