Overexplaining

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Anymore, if I care about the person Im answering questions to, or usually even conversing with, Ill tell them to tell me to shut up if things get too long winded. I really haven't found a good way yet to shorten my responses/explanations. And yes, it has hurt me in job situations as well, both with co-workers and bosses.

I also struggle with trying to find middle-of-the-road. For example, in a work situation I like the idea where I give a medium length answer and over time learn whether this person generally prefers longer answers or generally prefers shorter answers. I think I can also use a pause, and if they don't say anything, it's generally a sign they want me to go on. Or I can ask, Is that what you need?

But the actual practice, that's an entirely different matter. Practice and develop my skills, and sometimes I'll do better, sometimes less well. People never cease to surprise me, and myself fully included in that.

Wish I had more over-explaining people in the office. Under-explaining sucks
Myself I do over-explain/ramble.

This...



...and this.

I tend to go over things at least once but usually closer to five or six times with longer stuff before sending/posting. Unfortunately, I still usually end up wordy as hell. I get too bogged down in the "EVERY SINGLE WORD IS SIGNIFICANT!" mentality.

Been guilty of over explaining stuff too. I just can't seem to help myself. I love words & they are all equally important to me. Hence the over abundance of words both verbally & in writing.

It's not really an attempt to find the middle of the road. What happens is that I am either able to produce as complete an explanation as possible, or my brain feels like it's locked up and I can only manage a few words. To be honest, the very idea of finding a middle of the road has never crossed my mind. The way I tend to handle this in writing was actually helpful for some pursuits - like my freelancing in the past.

If I give a short response, though, it's because I have an entire block of information I can't translate into the right words, and I tend to feel fairly frustrated about this.

I don't often have people tell me they dislike my explanations, although it has happened.

I guess the thing that I've actually felt I had to correct was fixating on my interests as my only conversation topics, and I found out about that when I was in my mid-20s.

I tend to get a lot of anxiety when I try to edit things down like that. Sometimes it's just hard to work out what I need to delete.

It's not impossible, but I don't bother with it a lot of the time unless something really does look superfluous.

One of my biggest issues is weeding out the personal information (which is the most significant point for me) from the factual/topical information (which is important to the reader/listener).

But I can't say it really causes me anxiety so much as it causes a case of perfectionism. I feel an overwhelming need to choose the perfect words to be perfectly understood because writing is the only medium in which I can actually take the time to do so. Instead, it's the real world where I get the anxiety. I want to shape my words as perfectly as I do when I'm writing, but in a conversation there's simply not the time. I'm still trying to go over things five and six times in my head, but by the time I do the chance to say them has gone. Or I realize that the time is running out so I say something rushed that usually gets misunderstood or (worse) my thread of thought just falls completely apart, leaving me saying this sort of half-statement that doesn't really make any sense. Or (the absolute worst) I try to say my perfectly formed idea JUST AFTER I've missed the opportunity to say it, so it doesn't really match up with the rest of the conversation anymore. >_< That's where my anxiety starts kicking in.

Okay, I should say it doesn't always cause my anxiety. I do have a tendency to constantly revise and edit and never quite finish and the anxiety gets worse as I keep trying to make my writing perfect. For some reason this happens the same way with paid writing as it does with blog posts, forum posts, journal entries, etc.

I'm not sure that it's perfectionism so much as ... I'm not really sure what.

I tend to over explain and get VERY tied up in the semantics of words. Words are very important to me and they have clearly defined meanings. I really struggle if people use the wrong word in conversations or say one thing and don't mean what they say. I often get in to trouble (arguments) about the semantics and structure of what people say in discussions.

I will pick people up on this.. "so, by saying that... you mean this...therefore what actually you mean is ..." and people don't like this, but they are wrong... (to me) they haven't used the right phrase or conveyed the right meaning.


Anyway.. I am rambling now too..

Haha. Everywhere I've worked they start off thinking I'm a total ret*d cause I usually need things explained ten times more than everyone else does. I've learned not to care though, cause after the first few days they usually notice that I'm doing my job a lot better than everyone else that didn't need the long explanations to make sure they were correctly understanding the instructions.

I probably also 'overexplain' things far too much but to me I just see it as being precise.

Sometimes I just don't feel I have the energy to explain everything and in social situations where I feel very self conscious I just say as little as possible to get the attention off of me. However at home if explaining a situation or event, I have recently realised that I go through everything that happened in order, trying not to leave anything out. I am not quite sure why I do this because when others give too much info I find it quite annoying and sometimes feel like saying just get to the point!

At work when people ask me for an opinion, I tend to waffle.

It's like they ask me about the weather and I will go of on a tangent and discuss meteorological patterns, cloud formations then start talking about animated clouds in Laputa and the existential meaning behind a city in sky before drifting into futuristic architecture and design moving onto why every episode of the Simpsons has at least one design by Frank Lloyd Wright.

At some point I completely eliminate the primacy effect and can't remember where I started let alone what the original question was.

Click here. Receive needless verbosity.

Consider yourselves lucky that English is not my native language.

i also explain with superlative details pertaining to the formation of ideas i have (in real life). i preempt every possible question that my audience may develop at any stage with a complete appraisal of every aspect of what it is i am trying to convey. people rarely allow me to completely iterate all i have to say about things.

however, most people do not explain in enough detail to allow me to understand exactly what they are on about. i always have many curiosities that i know will always remain unanswered about the genesis and foundations of other peoples statements to me.

an example is:

a woman at one of the companies i program for (where i was earlier today), was talking to someone in the tea room and she said "there was a guy who actually disco danced non stop for 17 days!!."
then she looked at me and i said that i did not believe it.
she said it was in the "guinness book of records", and i said that no one could go 17 days without going to the toilet, and she said that he had 5 minute breaks to go to the toilet, and so i repeated that it was therefore not "non stop". she tried to explain with scant detail ("toilet breaks are not counted" (why?) etc) how the dance was "non stop", but i lost interest as i had finished my coffee and i walked out.

i have no idea what the foundations of her thoughts were because she provided insufficient explanation. i do not have any idea why she was talking about dancing.

I tend to overexplain things, especially if they tie into my field of study because I feel like I have to explain the theoretical / academic research pinnings behind it and how those influence my thought.

I also sometimes need to think in specifics where I will answer using a specific example and that takes a while. Dr. Grandin does this when she answers questions because she has to pull from a specific incident that was similar to the problem someone else asks her about.