No one wants to listen...

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I don't know if its the way I express myself or the things I choose to talk about but when I start talking people stop listening. I get a lot of "yeah... yep.. yeah.. no.. huh". I get that people don't always care about the same things or to the same degree but Im dying for back and forth conversation that I can actually contribute to for once and have no idea how to go about finding it.

Most of the time I feel like Im walking around with my ability to talk turned off and when I do make attempts its as if no one can hear what I am saying.

Can anyone relate or does anyone have any advice?

Can you describe how do you go about engaging people and what do you like to talk about ?

TheSunAlsoRises

I will talk about all sorts of things. Usually I will either try to initiate a conversation or hear something that is somewhat relevant to something that I know or find interesting and start talking about it. I tend to talk about anything science, math, or psychology related at any opportunity.

I don't know if this is what you were looking for in an answer. If not let me know.

When initiating a conversation.. Ill say something like.. "I remember you mentioning that you are interested in_______.. did you know__________.. ?"

I get that a lot. People tell me when I talk it sounds like I'm lecturing them. I've temporarily given up trying for awhile so that I feel less bad about myself. I don't even really understand what they mean when they say that. I'll try again in a couple of months when I feel better. One of these days I hope to get it right but for now I'm just taking a break from contact unless it's necessary. Does anyone give you any feedback on what they don't find ok in your conversation? It may hurt your feelings a little when they tell you, or you may not quite understand it like me, but it's better to know what you need to fix if you're going to solve it.

They mean that they feel like they're back in school listening to their teacher talk. And people usually don't like school very much.

Talk about things they can relate to like sports, celebrities, you know, the usual vapid, shallow stuff. I know it's boring but NTs, for some reason, just love talking about those things.

I think it's more a function of society rather than of you in particularly. People are wrapped up in their own personal affairs and are not as willing to engage a person in conversation as much..... without immediate tangible benefits i.e ( what can you do for me ? ).

TheSunAlsoRises

Ya sometimes that happens to me. I usually either stop talking or keep talking to make me feel better.

Talk about your neighbor's dog barking or how your garden's tomatoes are as big as a grapefruit -- NT's like stuff like that.

I'm rubbish at small talk. I appear very quiet, but I'm actually not a quiet person. I just get fed up with people going, "Yeh, OK" etc. It feels very wrong to state the obvious about my surroundings. Everything they talk about is mundane. At least they accept me, though.

Absolutely nothing wrong with any of those subjects but they don't tend to come up very often in everyday conversations. Well they do, but it's is usually faulty information that they read in some trashy magazine somewhere next to the gossip section (the latter of which is what they were really looking for lol).

I find it hard to find people to converse with at times. I like to get into a good debate about subjects of interest and most people would rather chitty chat about their washing, their sex life, their partners, and the local gossip.

For example, at the moment, I am most fascinated by fossils, palaeogeology, palaeontology, evolution and palaeolithic nutrition. These are not things most people I encounter get excited about. They are too busy getting over excited about the latest news about some famous boy band or 'it' girl I have never heard of.

I also prefer to spend my Friday evening studying and people just cannot comprehend that at all. They think I should be out partying! Gah! Really, I am happy sat in looking at my fossilised rock (the last one I looked at was the fossilised remains of a crinoid, otherwise known as the 'sea lily' which is still about today but was most prolific during the Palaeozoic. It was most exciting to view and it makes me ponder about the fact that this animal was alive in a world that I will never personally experience because much of it has long gone including many of the life forms that were walking the Earth at the time. What was that world really like?)...

Also at the moment I am studying seismic waves and what they can tell scientists about the structure of the Earth's interior. I am learning about P Waves, S Waves, Love Waves and Rayleigh Waves, the speeds they travel at and the types of movement they cause in the earth, as well as how they use them to investigate the interior.

Before that there was also an interesting section on the Earth's mantle and peridotite which contains olivine. That is also most interesting.

Anyway, if I wanted to go and party I would. People don't believe me though....

Personally, I was going to study psychology at one point but changed courses at the last minute (lost a lot of respect for the psych profession over the years and still like the subject of psychology itself in some ways, but some parts of it were frustrating me due to what I consider to be incorrect theories and lines of thought. Basically I am too subjective in regards to that subject now and it got me wound up about my personal issues and my lack of success with therapists who still, to this day, insist that socialising will come naturally to me and that I will enjoy spending hours sitting around talking about irrelevant rubbish instead of studying...gah!). I now study the Earth sciences and that uses a lot of maths...so I see nothing wrong with your chosen subjects. Indeed all of them can be most interesting.

Oh god help us all!

School would have been great if the other students would have actually stopped talking all the way through class and actually let people learn something! Also, throwing things at the teacher so they could not get on with their job did not help matters. In the end I gave up bothering to go to school. You couldn't learn anything in that environment anyway and I got bored with the constant nattering about rubbish and having to wait for everyone else to catch up all the time anyway...

College was much better. You can learn stuff there!

Haha! It's true though ....

I would love to know what people hear when I speak... if they hear anything at all. I sometimes find myself in situations where people will interrupt me in the middle of a sentence as if I wasn't speaking at all and continue on as if this were perfectly reasonable behavior.

Even a friend's answering machine seems to get bored and hang up on me. Frequently if I need to leave a message, I will start speaking and a few seconds later it beeps and hangs up. I assume I am not speaking loudly enough for the machine to register, but after a while it really starts to feel like a personal attack.

I suspect it is my low volume monotone that puts people off. But I usually feel like I am yelling if I talk any louder.

Small talk is an art.
Which I do not practice..
Nor always comprehend.
Even after years of trying.
the end result?
A conversation dying!

Sincerely,
Matthew