Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

[DefTeaMachine]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

Personally I find he best way to associate is to just sit there at the table while other people are chating and then hit a beat when they enevitably ask me to start beatboxing.

[drizzleRomanceGirl]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

Well I do, but I still don't get invited. Over half the parties of my college friends are parties where they get drunk from what I heard and that's not my scene.

I understand; I don't drink alcohol either and don't attend many parties. Have you tried throwing your own party?

[SC_coolguy44]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

I understand; I don't drink alcohol either and don't attend many parties. Have you tried throwing your own party?

Yes, I have tried throwing my own parties and nobody showed up. Either I got stood up or people legitimately cancelled at the last second without telling me (it really pisses me off when people do stuff to me without warning).

[drizzleRomanceGirl]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

Yes, I have tried throwing my own parties and nobody showed up. Either I got stood up or people legitimately cancelled at the last second without telling me (it really pisses me off when people do stuff to me without warning).

I'm sorry to hear that. >.< I hope you have a much better experience next time.

[kommisar]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

One thing that helped me over the years is reading people by putting myself in their shoes. I imagine myself being told what I'm saying and I judge the effect from that. Would I care if I were to hear what I say? Would I be able to carry a conversation? In some cases even the most trivial conversations about random things can spark interest. Confidence is a massive factor, but ideally I like to imagine how well I'd react to what I say.

Sometimes even if it's stupid stuff I'll run my mouth and talk about a lot of things. As long as its within a range of interest I won't sound like I'm annoying. That takes experience from talking with various types of people though.

[Cavernio]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

I understand; I don't drink alcohol either and don't attend many parties. Have you tried throwing your own party?

Maybe you should try drinking alcohol.

That was actually kinda serious. Alcohol is known to make social awkwardness melt away. There's a reason parties and blind dates often are alcohol-centric, while smaller get-togethers with close friends don't have that stereotype attached. Heck, bars exist for that reason. I know that that doesn't really help reading cues and all, but it might make conversation more enjoyable anyways.

This isn't much help, but I think perhaps the best thing would be for you to find specific people who you feel that you can get along with, people who will naturally help you, kinda like Devonin said. If you're really as bad as you say you are, you don't want subtle hints that could be construed multiple different ways. You need something solid. Perhaps your roomates could help you with this, since you're going to have to interact with them while you live in the same space. If you trust them enough, you could simply tell them one day that you're bad at reading social cues, and you want them to blatantly let you know when, for example, a conversation is over, or if you're being to weird with something. If I were one of your roommates, I'd certainly feel less awkward just after having that conversation with you, as weird as it would be, and it would also make me feel alright about being blunt with you in the future. I suspect social niceties and worries about hurting your feelings make things more awkward than they need to be, even with your lack of skills.

[Dynam0]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

Uh...how will drinking alcohol help when the focus is understanding social cues and not releasing inhibitions? That would most likely make the situation more awkward because now you've opened the floodgates for any off-colour remarks to come to light. That roommate I was talking about earlier is a prime example. Give him a few glasses of wine and it would worsen his awkwardness since being reserved and shy was what kept some of the out-of-place comments in check.

[andy-o24]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

I actually just had experience with that last night. A guy on our floor was throwing a party with a half gallon of vodka and one of the smaller guys on our floor, 5'3", 135 he said, had eight shots and was plastered.

But this brought out a side of him that none of us had experienced yet. He was talking and acting goofy and saying a bunch of dumb things. We took him up to the eighth floor of the building to talk to a girl we knew he liked because of how he was acting. Naturally he is very quiet and does not say much, but with alcohol in him, he was the center of attention and was talking a lot. Granted, some of the things he said were not exactly appropriate for everyday conversation, but it did loosen him up.

So, like Dynamo said, it can eliminate a conversation filter and allow for some rude or inappropriate comments to come out, but along with that it can also open a person up to talking more. Drinking will do little for your social cue identification, but it can help you talk to more people and perhaps have them be more inclined to talk to you.

-o24

[dAnceguy117]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

In the long run, I don't think alcohol is the solution here.

[kommisar]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

fjoi;ewrjfciowes did someone actually suggest that

[Poison-]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

My suggestion:

Don't listen to anyone telling you to try alcohol.

[drizzleRomanceGirl]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

I have never drank alcohol (or smoked) in my life and I never plan to drink or smoke.

*edit* By the way, what exactly marks a conversation as over, and how can you tell the other person is ready to end the conversation?

[Arch0wl]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

I strongly disagree with the "don't do alcohol" thing, for several reasons:

1. Alcohol lowers your inhibitions

2. You will not know what you are like with lowered inhibitions without alcohol.

3. While you may not know what you *really* want since depressants like alcohol give you a mild euphoria, you will at least have an idea of what you're like with your guard down.

4. You will probably be more confident while drunk.

5. You can channel this state and emulate this behavior while sober.

6. And actually, in general you can retain what it's like to feel uninhibited while sober.

The more you drink, too, the more you get a better idea of what you're like when drunk and the more you can force yourself into that state if you need impromptu bursts of confidence or deeper analysis of your motivations.

This applies to nearly all drugs, by the way, but especially alcohol.

[Dynam0]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

2. You will not know what you are like with lowered inhibitions without alcohol.

Not true at all. I've become less inhibited as I grew older and this isn't from alcohol, just growing up and getting a better understanding of myself through life experience. I drank my face off through university and all it ever did was give me false pretenses to say/do whatever I wanted because I was 'drunk hurr hurr'.

Emulating a drunken state to become less inhibited sounds pretentious in and of itself so I would stay away from that unless you're okay with being someone you're not.

The suggestions from page 1 are a good starting point imo:

1. Find a close friend who can help you with the social cues/anatomy of a conversation.

2. Get involved and participate in social activities. Drinking is absolutely not a requisite, consider it a social lubricant for when you've mastered social cues and holding a conversation with close friends and want to converse with less familiar people.

[benguino]

Re: Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

*edit* By the way, what exactly marks a conversation as over, and how can you tell the other person is ready to end the conversation?

I don't know if I'm the best person to give advice but from what I find, conversations are usually explicitly ended by one of the two people in the conversation, depending on who wants to "get out" of the conversation first (either for an actual reason like having to go somewhere or not being able to think of anything else to say).

If the other person starts to end the conversation (i.e. "It was nice talking to you[...]" or "Well, I better get going[...]") then follow up with something that brings to conversation to a nice close and ending with a "bye!" or some other exclamation is the best way for both people to agree the conversation has ended.

Now if you are the one that wants to end the conversation, then start hinting to the person that you want to end the conversation (such as using the statements above). Assuming the person is socially inclined enough, the person will follow up naturally.