Amused by NT conversation I overheard.

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WOW Sora i think your roles with people are reversed if you know what i mean from the content of your post. How Ironic!
ROFLMAO!! !

On the surface it would seem so. Didn't think about that hehe

That conversation doesn't make any sense to me at all...

Odd... it made perfect sense to me... Then again, I have been observing people for years. Someone also said before that that is more tpical of a female conversation, and that would be a correct assumption. From what I understand, conversation like that is used to fill time, and is a form of small talk used between females. It however, is not used amoung males.

That someone was indeed me.

It is indeed more typical for the females of the species.
A kind of vocal mutual grooming activity and to establish social comfort within a group or between pair of individuals.
This is common behaviour amoungst female primates to form social bonds and groups. There is safety in numbers.
In humans, this behaviour can be observed in hair dressing salons and in shopping Malls.
The vocalisiations focus on people, family and relationships.
Vocalisations have lilting tones.
These vocalisations are typically accompanied by giggles and smiles.

I have been on the receiving end of some of these vocalisations and I can safely say that I responded (key word here) to these for-over an hour. It's nice to feel that someone likes you and you are appreciated even if the talk is all "fluff", it's comfortable "fluff". I have difficulties initiating these vocalisations myself. I tend to talk about the surrounding physical environment instead.

I have also been observing the human species, which is kind of strange considering that I am a human female!


I missed my vocation, I should have been a wildlife documentary narrator I know!

I'm making myself laugh now.

I have noticed I often end up on the giving end of relationships, and then get thought of as weird, because its not typical of men... I have little interest in hearing the stories though...

Its strange how when I started observing myself, how feminine I actually am... Then again, being trans, this should't be a surprise... Sadly, I am too absorbed in the anime I am watching right now, and forgot the rest of my post, and have been trying to remember for the past 20 minutes, and can't.... Pani Poni Dash doesn't even make any sense to me...

I'm not good at conversing with anyone, whether female or male.
I try to join in with small talk but I find gossip trivial and so have a hard time retaining the facts that I need in order to join in, and I often find myself zoning out of the conversation until it moves onto something I can contribute to.
I'm nervous about 'chatting' because it is very much out of my comfort zone, so I tend to naturally withdraw from any such conversations, which means I generally withdraw from every conversation, because however hard I try, I always seem to fall flat on my face (not literally...most of the time).

I used to be like that, but then I developed tactics to bring the topic to somethingI can contribute. I have at least one topic for any group I would be in, and it seems to work, so why not?

I have really bad social anxiety which kind of negates any tactics I could produce. I get very, very scared and worked up and by the time I've mustered the courage to speak, the conversation has either moved on or the people have moved away. I've always been incredibly socially anxious from a very young age and it used to render me literally physically paralysed in many situations.

I was like that, and still am at times... Key there is confidence, only way to build that is to step outside your comfort zone and try. I still beat myself up over many of the conversations I've had where I had something I should have said, but didn't because I was either afraid to, or couldn't muster the confidence to say it, or didn't feel it would be taken well enough to be worth while, or... or... there are just too many excuses I have used not to say something I either needed to or wanted desperately to, or just should have.

I loved your explanation, evolutionary psychology is about the only way I can make sense of all the nuances of human language, particually gossip. Some believe that gossip was invented to free the hands for important tasks such as foraging, if we used social tactics to reinforce bonds and form relationships for future gain as our ancestors likely did, like grooming it would take up a huge amount of time that needs to be spent on energy providing tasks. Particually in a group size as big as say, a hunter gatherer homo sapien, about 150 members estimated in a average group.

That's interesting.

I've been on modern "foraging" expeditions myself such as field-trips.

A leader said something like:
"Stop gossiping and do the task you're supposed to be doing!"

Even when we had to work in groups.

While I always seemed to be in "task" mode, everyone else was usually in "gossip" mode. It's only now that I can see why they were gossiping and why I found team based activities very hard. Everyone else seemed to have a stronger natural drive to gossip than I did.

The gossiping for "freeing the hands" idea would work with "simple" tasks such as picking fruit.

However, I think there might be a cognitive trade off as well.
The more time you spend on irrelevant gossiping and developing rapport with other people, the less time you can use to concentrate on more cognitively demanding tasks.

Such tasks would be writing down field observations; recording data; using instruments and biological keys etc. Lone concentration and no distraction is essential for many of these tasks.

I believe, that humans are sometimes required to do far more cognitively demanding "foraging" tasks than they perhaps were in the past. Not only that, many of them are required to write up a report afterwards, which just wouldn't be the case with simple fruit picking.

There is a direct conflict between seeking social comfort (via verbal mutual grooming) and providing for the group. It doesn't always work out.