ToughDiamond wrote:
Really all they have to do is to watch me and wait for me to reach a natural break in what I'm doing, or wait for me to look at them and ask them what they want. They could also ask me if I'm busy before they launch into anything complex. I try to wait for a free input peripheral before I talk to anybody, but mostly I end up never saying it, especially if they're talking to others....they don't seem to notice me waiting, and their conversations just go on and on. I don't do that - whenever I'm in conversation and somebody approaches, I know they're waiting to speak. The only difficult part is being masterful enough to interrupt the person already talking to me so that I can hear what the newcomer wants.
^ This.
I usually listen to a conversation that has any sort of depth, or where the people have some intrinsic value to my daily life (ie: if you're a random stranger trying to start a conversation on the weather, I don't give a royal @%, but if you're a co-worker, or you're talking about good books you've read, I'll pay attention.)
Just like ToughDiamond, however, I try and find free moments to talk and often try to indicate a desire to talk, and no-one sees/pauses appropriately for me to do so. Sometimes that leads to me shutting up and getting frustrated, sometimes this leads to me taking a less indicated pause and blurting my thing out, leading to the comment "why do you always interrupt me".
That's the big problem I have with many-person conversations. When is it MY turn? Why doesn't anyone else ever get the evil "you interrupted me" glare when they speak (in what I find to be) out of turn?
I start ignoring people who accuse me of interrupting them, and any conversation they are involved in.
14 Jul 2011, 5:32 am
I've tried eye contact but they just seem to think I've become interested in what they're saying. I actually had to resort to putting my head on a guy's shoulder once - it definitely got his attention, though if I hadn't already known he had a wacky sense of humour, I wouldn't have tried that. And even now I'm not at all sure how he took it.
