A Fear of People Not Listening to Me

[Toomuchfear]

As a sufferer of SA, I am very aware of myself to the point I notice my tone of voice, the way I'm standing, the way I look to someone else. But one thing that I really notice is how I speak. I worry that what I say is not interesting anything enough- and guess what happens? The person I'm speaking to barely listens to me.

An example today, I work with someone and we practically sat in silence. I could not get any sort of conversation going. Yet this other person is really talkative and chatty around others, it makes me feel socially inferior.

I hate this so much. I feel like I'm trapped within myself and can't express how I am feeling. Good conversations lead to rapport, which leads to friendships. And without social skills to make a conversation, I'm all alone

What can I do? It feels like there is no one like me.

 

[yeahyeahyeah]

I work with alot of different people ( shift changes ) some i can joke around with , others i complain about work with and the rest i don't talk about work with because they are sick of talking about it . 1 guy i can talk about the news for about 10 seconds then sit in silence while my truck is being loaded . it gets weird but i just tell myself , we have nothing to talk about plain and simple .

we get along but will NEVER be friends .

You may have SA but you may not be the problem , maybe it's the people you are dealing with clash with your personality .

 

[R3K]

i used to worry about the same exact thing... especially watching other people being so conversational and jovial all the time. i've slowly started to realize that it's not social skills or the perfect topic that can get a convo going, but like what "yeahyeahyeah" kinda said, it's the personality match up. people generally don't want to chit-chat with someone they don't have similar interests with. and talking at work can be kinda distracting, so it's gotta be the perfect conversational setting, and you can't really create or force that to happen most of the time. gotta just let it happen and don't try too hard.

 

[leave_me_alone]

Yep, love being cut in middle of sentence by my obnoxious friends.

 

[mikebird]

How about this?

I spend far too long thinking about my childhood in the 80s and 90s, when life was so good.

The people I have to deal with, but very rarely, but I keep losing my job, because I ain't popular, but have I evolved and matured from early age, or has it happened the other way? Have I regressed to being a kid again, unable to cope with life? Did I get to a summit in life when everything was best, but then downhill, when nothing will ever be that good again? If I saw it coming, I might have been able to do something about it.

Considering those people I struggle to get on with, have they done the opposite? I see the worst times in an office as everything being in school playground mode. Have the others got stuck in that era, or is it me? Flipping the situation doesn't really providing a solution.

It's all a clash of principles, understanding, common interests, or.... more...

I'm looking for an ideal office environment, which might be out there somewhere, and an ideal girlfriend, and a lottery windfall.

If it wasn't for the overpopulation disaster, we'd all be happy

 

[Falkor]

This happens to me all the time, It's like I only talk about non-sense.
Or I make it sound like totally non-sense. Because I don't know how to be interesting, I don't own the social skills of getting someone's attention on my subject. Yesterday I experienced the same, and I just don't know how to get a conversation going. Especially I notice people are too busy in mind to listen to my piece of story, I wish I could just be noticed and heard. But people are always talking about their own stuff, or not even interested in what I'm trying to tell. While I'm trying to listen to people all the time, I'm a listener when it comes to conversations, ONLY if I notice people really listen to me, I can speak about my own life.

I feel somewhat dissapointed in some situations when I want to share something I'm really happy and joyful about, nobody reacts spontanious or enthousiastic. That makes me sad.
Maybe it's my tone of my voice, or my body language, I just don't know how to make it sound interesting. I really am bad at socializing.