not afraid to join conversations, I just don't know how.

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I can start conversations with one person and am ok in continuing conversatiosn when another person approaches me. But there are too many times when two other people start talking and I just sit there saying nothing. For example if I am finishing something and can't talk when I do it, others in the room will start talking. So when I finish I am just sitting there.

So this post is partly asking how to join conversations and partly asking if anyone else has people who insist they are afraid to join when you just don't know how.

Yeah this happens all the time to me. If there's more than one person and they're not totally focused on me, I don't know how to time my comments or even what to say. Unfortunately I'm unable to give you any advice because I haven't figured it out yet myself. Basically I just try to avoid being put in groups. In group conversations I sit there mute and inert, like a dummy.

I quite often get called shy when in fact I just can't generate small talk fast enough in a group conversation. I can't offer much advice in terms of joining conversations, but perhaps you could watch scenarios when other people join, work out what they did and just copy their actions (I know, easier said than done).

I'm like this too. Some people think I seem shy (or sometimes even snobby), but it's just that I have trouble putting things into words so I often end up not saying anything. So frustrating sometimes.

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I'm the other way around - I know how to join in conversations, but I'm too afraid to, in case people might look at me and say, ''I wasn't talking to you!''

One thing I've found that sometimes helps to get people to start to include you in a conversation is simply to interject a "yeah" and a nod as a form of agreement immediately after someone says something. You don't have to have anything to say about it, just communicating your agreement with what was said is sometimes enough to indicate your interest in being included in the conversation. As a result, the talkative people will then look at you when they say something, and others might pause longer to let you jump in.

It doesn't always work, though; sometimes I am left looking like a shunned person trying to work my way back in to the group. So it's a bit of a risk, but this is one thing I've worked out to help this issue.

I'm not afraid to join conversations however if I am talking to more than one person I find it difficult to time my responses or keep up with the conversation and that in turn makes me anxious.

happens to me ALL THE TIME.

i used to get the old tired "this an A-B conversation, C your way out of it" line.

Yup.

I find it really difficult to join in conversations - I don't know when to contribute or what to contribute, and when I do, people tend to either ignore me or look as if I've just said something completely odd and not relevant even if it was only "I agree" with something some else has already said. Or I'll say something, get blank looks in return so shut up - and then 5 minutes later someone else will say what I just said, and everyone will respond in a completely different way. I can't work it out.

When I sit quietly and don't join in, I am told that I'm too quiet, or people comment that I'm shy, or encourage me by saying "don't be afraid to join in".

But when I do join in ... well, I've already written that.

It's all rather confusing.

I think for me it is mostly about not knowing how, with an added bit of fear about joining in because from my experience it goes wrong more often than it goes right. But the fear is a learned thing ... really, I just don't seem to know how.

Me too. When I sit there quietly whilst the others are all having a conversation between them, they soon look at me and say, ''you're quiet. Are you all right?''
And then if I joined in their conversation, I will either be interrupted, not listened to, or looked at funny because of joining in at the wrong time.

This is the thing about social interaction - there are so many ''right times'' and ''wrong times'' that I really get confused. It's made me become socially phobic, because I get so scared of breaking a social rule because I worry too much of what other people think of me. I didn't think there would be so many hidden social rules, if social interaction is such a natural thing. I really don't know why NTs have to freak out so easily. I understand the rules like don't say ''you're fat'' or ''you're ugly'', because they are nasty and they would hurt my feelings if they were said to me (even though I'm not fat anyway). But these hidden social rules like don't join in a conversation if they aren't talking to you, is such a stupid rule because I see people jumping their way into other people's conversations all the time, but when I do it, it's ''wrong'', and NTs act like it's the end of the world if I did so.

Conversations have a certain flow to them and it's hard to know when to jump in. Especially if 2 people talking to each other are obviously long time acquaintances speaking naturally and quickly in a very familiar way.

Sometimes if you can tell the conversation is going in a certain direction or toward a topic you're knowledgeable of I think you can prepare to jump in.

Being told ''I wasn't talking to you!'' actually happened to me last year, and since then I've been very reluctant to join in any conversation. Let's say A and B (two colleagues of mine) were talking about C (who was a new worker who had started last week). While they were talking, I was right near, I heard A say to B, ''so what do you think of C then?'' B responded, ''I don't like her very much.'' I gathered this was just general gossip (nothing private), and although this is unusual for an Aspie, I am the type who really likes gossip about people whom I know. So, being that I overheard their conversation, I asked, ''why don't you like C?'' in a friendly sort of way, and B replied, ''I wasn't talking to you!'' At first I thought she was just joking around, but when I looked at her face and didn't see any smile or eye contact towards me, I gathered she meant it seriously, so I started feeling a bit hurt. I walked away and started doing something else, and soon B came upto me and said, ''I'm sorry I had to say that. But you do seem to have a habit of looking over people's shoulders when they are talking in private. You did it last week too.''

I can name one thing wrong with what she said. It was not a private conversation. It was open gossip - and I thought it was natural for women of any age to want to join in any sort of gossip. Private conversations are when people are talking about something to do with their personal life, or something serious or worrying, affecting their state of mind, or life. Something like that. Open gossip is just like small talk - just a quick few words about somebody, doesn't matter who is listening (as long as it wasn't the person they were talking about). All three of us knew of this woman (C), so it wasn't like I was nosing in on somebody I don't know.