Blocked in conversations

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I've noticed that almost always when I'm having a conversation with more than one person, it's nearly impossible to get a word in. I'll start to say something but I'll be ignored/talked over, and as soon as there's a pause someone else will interject without giving me a chance. Does anyone else have this problem? Any solutions...?

Yes, all the time.

I have that problem to some extent. Even with one person I find sometimes I can't figure out when the other person has stopped and I can start speaking.

My solution: Enjoy listening.

This happens to me too. My god is this the hidden social rule in conversations? Shut each other out.

What I do is, I keep asking and asking and I shout to get the answer so they can hear me. Maybe they can't hear me so that's why I do it. Yep even regular people get hyper focused they shut us out in conversations. We must get their attention.

This happens to me too. The only advice I've ever been given is to call out someones name before addressing them. I've found it helps but it is by no means a solution.

I get this all the time too. If the person who has talked over me is family or someone I know well, I've been known to loudly reprimand them for doing so, but most of the time I decide the conversation wasn't that interesting anyway and go do something else.

Happens to me all the time. Don't know how to deal with it. Also the topic moves on faster than I can put my point across.

This used to happen to me all the time. I think that you have to be able to catch the appropriate moment to get a word in, using eye contact. And if people are already talking and you just don't know what to say, it's better not to repeat something they've already said. I always did this in the past, and it made me look even more awkward. Now, I just avoid such conversations altogether. That's how I meet all of the loners and misfits - when someone doesn't blend in like me, I start talking to them out of boredom.

All my cousins do that. Everybody talks at once. There's no such thing as taking turns. And when I don't say anything because I can't get a word in sideways, they call me anti-social. I that sort of thing is common. If I want the people to like me, I'll babble while they babble, but it's uncomfortable and I never really get it right.

I find it very rude, but it happens all the time.

I get that, too, though I *think* that it's not *quite* as bad as it used to be. When there's more than one person involved in a conversation, I often just can't find the right moment to say my thing, and I wind up standing there awkwardly, trying to figure out when it's appropriate to talk. If I'm lucky, one person in the group will see something in my face/ body language, and say some variation of, "C___, did you want to say something?"
There have been also plenty of times when I've been speaking, and no one noticed that I was saying anything. I think that I've recently (as in within the past few months) gotten somewhat better at engaging the attention of my listener/s before I start speaking, but I definitely still have issues with that.
In my case, I wonder if some of my issues with conversations have to do with the culture of where I live. I live in an Outer Borough of New York City. One thing I've been thinking about recently is the fact that the majority of New Yorkers don't really listen in conversations;they just talk. Since New Yorkers are generally always in a hurry, they also talk fast, and at the first opportunity. If someone pauses between words, the average New Yorker pounces on that as his/ her opportunity to speak.
Last summer I was, in California with my boyfriend S. California's culture is far more relaxed than that of New York. I remember being amazed to hear how the majority of Californians take the time to correctly pronounce all the syllables in the words they say, and they even pause briefly between words. S spent a significant portion of his childhood living in California. Thus, I'm used to him talking like that, but it was strange hearing so many people talking like that in one place. I talk pretty quickly myself sometimes, though it doesn't seem to give me any edge in conversations.
Sorry for the digression there. I'm just trying to make sense of the human race, and I haven't quite managed to do that yet. I would be interested in knowing if there's a relationship between how much trouble an individual on the spectrum has in conversations, and where they live.

I notice when this happens, the person I am "supposed" to be talking to has eye contact on the other person (or one of the other people) in the group. So, the answer - at least for me - is that there is the notion of "turns" in conversation, but there are far more sophisticated things going on. It's annoying, but it's how people across the board behave. So there's got to be some sort of innate logic that we will someday figure out.

I can do one on one conversations so well my therapist thinks I can't have AS, but truthfully I've learned how to do it over the years. But when it comes to a group, I have no clue whatsoever when I can join in or not. It's hard.

like mathgirl says, it seems like it is to do with eye contact. i'm not exactly sure how people do it or if there is more to it than just looking at people or not.

I basically gave up - what's the point when in the long run I won't establish any real contact with them anyway? I have so little in common with majority - when forced to socialise I only try to smile, respond if being asked, be as polite as possible and move away as fast as I can.

I used to do it only to prove myself I can do it but it's futile, energy draining waste of time.

Last edited by Booyakasha on 08 Nov 2009, 9:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

it happens to me a lot. i keep silent, but get really hurt.