Socializing at work?

Hey all! I'm new to the board and will post a formal introduction soon but I just had a quick question. How do you all handle socializing at work? I have my own office but I have to do work with about ten other people. The only thing I can handle discussing with them is the work I give them.
There are people I've worked with for 5 years and have only said hello or good morning to them. I wish I could say more to them but small talk is such a challenge and sometimes seems pointless.

I realy enjoy my work its the only place i feel like a real person because i have a role to play and i am needed (iam an electrician) as for socialising with them i have a group of pople that i talk to and there is groups i dont talk too,i just give them a simple Hi.

I also find that some people dont realy wanna make small talk either and would just rather say hello so why should i put my self in an awkward postion of trying to talk to them.I will only talk to them when and if need be.It have been in my job six and a half years and its only in the past year i have come to feel comfortable in it but only too be told it might me closing in a years time.So i better get ready for some change

Ive just read back and see that this will prob be no help to you at all but i just had to get my bit in :lol:

hmm my advice for what its worth is..ask questions..show an interest..people like talking about themself. your colleagues probably just assume youre only interested in your work..which is okay..but..theres a lot of opportunity to socialise with colleagues and i find it really good to have that..because once work is over im not going out!

At least at work you DO have an excuse to talk to them and you DO have stuff in common (even if it is only just work related)

I still dont find socialising at work easy, but a combination of most people being twice my age AND the fact that I do have stuff in common with them makes it a lot easier. I still get the odd panic attack and if the conversation ever swings to non-work related topics I can find it difficult

if people at work were my own age then it would be a different story

I handle it very badly!
I´m no one at work, i´m just the dog body . And I work alone.
I´m a domestic cleaner(one of the most crappy works at the world, I reckon), because I don´t speake very good english.
At the begining I was quite ok, but now I have to be more "friendly" with every one because it´s more than 3 months I have been working there.
And I don´t feel there´s nothing to speake with them, I feel freaky in that place. (well, I feel freaky almost every where).
My english is getting better so i will come back to my place soon, my socializing problems will going on, but it should be easyer to deal with it in my languaje.
Sometimes I work at home, with my computer, and really enjoy that work.
With a nice cup of te next to me an a cigarret ready to be smoked. There´s no boses, no annoying work mates, you don´t have to talk , you dont´have to worry. Just be yourself and enjoy your work (and the cigarret)

a job where you dont have to talk!

sounds ideal!

you come from another country to the UK redwine?

finding it hard fitting in?

I was thinking as being a postie for a job, goit another SP mate that does that, just you and your bike and letterboxs and fresh air, sounds like bliss!!

HI remus!

I´m from spain, well there´s a lot spanish people here.
I droped up in this country hiding from personals matters and it has been very hard at the begining. My english was shit (more than now) and i didn´t feel like making spanish friends in other country.
I just wanted to be alone , be independient and try to tidy up my life.
Now I feel better but still with my SP problems.
Here is better, nobody cares if you dont´t speak too much.
But my time here is almost gone. I have been thinking a lot and now is time to come back and face my fears.
That postie job sounds great! The only problem I see is that you have to awake too early !(I´m always late everywhere)

I don't like my current job but for only one reason. I have little in common with anyone and feel like an outsider. Most of the people are of a similat age to me, but they're all settling down, getting married and starting families.....I'm not.

I can't be bothered to try and start conversations with most of the people any more as I know they're not interested in me and I realise that I'm not interested in them either. It's impossible not to overhear all their mind-numbingly dull conversations about marriage and babies and happy families.....it drives me nuts.

Previous jobs I have had have been mostly fine as I've usually made one or two friends quickly and so gained confidence and settled in nicely. But not in the current job.

What makes it worse is that it's one of those "happy" offices where nearly everyone always acts happy and jolly....one big happy family. Not attending their boring social events is frowned upon, but I still don't go to them.

The actual work, whilst not brilliant, is still the most interesting I've had in any job. The pay, whilst nothing special, is still the most I've ever received. But it's the lonliest job I've ever had.

Socialising with people at work is something I find very difficult. I like to have things nicely compartmentalised so that at work people only talk to me about work and at choir people only talk about musical things etc. Of course this doesn't happen and I just have to try and cope as best I can.

Things have improved a bit for me. One thing I did for a bit which I found helpful was to think through some questions I could ask people and think abuot things I could say and email them to myself from home to work to remind myself that I could ask a question like "how was your weekend" or something. This is because I almost never ask people questions. I find it intimidating when people ask me questions about myself or my life (ask me a work related question or a trivia question on the other hand and you can't shut me up :? ). Well in real life anyway. So I've got into a habit of not asking questions of other people. Combine this with the fact that I am naturally very talkative but have spent my life trying not to be because I thought it was wrong, and you get a rather strange communication style.

I now spend a lot of my time reminding myself that someone asking a question is not a hostile action and I don't need to act as if it is. I try to have some answers in mind for the most common and/or intimidating questions. Also I think about questions to ask because that is a far better way of maintaining a conversation with most people than rambling on about some obscure topic that interests you (although I quite often hang out with people whose conversation does have a high component of "rambling on about some obscure topic" and I quite like that).

I like work. I'm always so unsure as to how to start a social interaction, but at work, I have some excuse. I am *supposed* to be there and I even have some ready made topics - "can I borrow your stapler?"

It is ironic, given what others have said on this thread, but my interest in chatting with my work-mates is a lot greater than their interest in chatting to me. I hope I don't come accross as pathetically eager.

They are a lot more interested in chatting to each other than they are to me and I don't know why. I don't know what to do because I don't know why they don't want to talk to me much.

If I'm overly eager, I should back off.
If I'm too stand-offish, I should try to be friendlier.
If I talk too much about work stuff, I should try to be more personal.
If I'm too personal, I should try to focus more on professional things.

If only there weren't a social rule against asking why they don't want to talk to me more. Even if the answer was just that they can't stand me, that would let me off the hook - I could just avoid them.

Someguy said:

If I'm overly eager, I should back off.
If I'm too stand-offish, I should try to be friendlier.
If I talk too much about work stuff, I should try to be more personal.
If I'm too personal, I should try to focus more on professional things.

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I can identify with this feeling and Cassie I also have done things similar to what you describe. I've spent most of my life believing my personality was somehow "wrong". But there really is a lot of variation in the ways people interact with eachother. I try and see the differences as just that, differences. Not better or worse.

It has taken a lot of work for me to reach this though.

Sometimes I've thought I've acted like a moron and been babbling on like an idiot to complete strangers or I've done really dumb things, or thought that I must have really annoyed people and have found out that they didn't see it that way at all.

There have been times that I thought that everything I said was stupid, and that everything I did was wrong and I felt humilated at my stupidity and then later found out that, for example someone has felt lonely and shy and had no idea what to say, and they really appreciated that I was making the effort to talk to them, and they weren't really focusing on the rubbish I was talking, but that fact that I was friendly.

On the one hand, to improve my social skills, I know I need to concentrate more on what other people are doing and saying. But on the other hand, I know I need to spend less time interpreting everything they do or say as somehow indicating their displeasure with me. A subtle balance indeed.

Nightshade said:

Sometimes I've thought I've acted like a moron and been babbling on like an idiot to complete strangers

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Oh, I get that! And I also think I've been standing there in a weirdly silent way. Often I get both impressions in the same conversation - when I'm talking, I'm thinking "am I totally dominating this conversation and being a bore?" and when I'm not talking I'm thinking "am I being a creepy lurker, just standing silently and observing?"

There have been times that I thought that everything I said was stupid, and that everything I did was wrong and I felt humilated at my stupidity and then later found out that, for example someone has felt lonely and shy and had no idea what to say, and they really appreciated that I was making the effort to talk to them, and they weren't really focusing on the rubbish I was talking, but that fact that I was friendly.

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That must be great to hear. I wonder how often, if at all, people think this of me. I often try to be friendly if someone looks shy or looks left out (cause boy oh boy, do I know what that is like!).

On the one hand, to improve my social skills, I know I need to concentrate more on what other people are doing and saying. But on the other hand, I know I need to spend less time interpreting everything they do or say as somehow indicating their displeasure with me. A subtle balance indeed.

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It is. It is so hard. One the one hand, it seems so plausible that one can talk oneself into any interpretation of what other people are doing. But on the other, without interpretation, how can you spare other people from unwanted attentions? People don't tell you stuff outright - you are supposed to pick up on clues. People don't say "please stop trapping me in conversations - I don't like talking to you so much" - you have to try to pick up the signals they telecast (and I don't read signals very easily). People don't say "stop asking me to have coffee with you - I don't want to have coffee with you" - they just keep coming up with excuses and hope that you eventually get the idea.

I hate my lonliness, but it would be an even worse situation if I become a pain in the ass. I mostly concentrate on being inoffensive - it doesn't win you friends, but it certainly beats being reviled.

"Personal" relationships are worst for this kind of thing. I'm terrified of accidentally harassing women. I think I do a good job of being completely inoffensive, but I never go on dates, let alone develop a relationship of any kind.

Do you think you cant talk because whenever you do talk you get anxoius and so everything then comes out wrong, if you do then i feel your pain. I chose to work at places where I dont have to talk too. But I do have hope in one day not having social phobia and working some where I qould like working at. email me. [email protected], because I feel like I can relate to you alot.