Sigh. I don’t know where to start or what do I need to ask here even at all.
So, I have joined a new workplace and I just don’t know how to interact with people. Most of the time I don’t feel the energy to interact. But being shutdown feels not very socially acceptable behavior nor I feel it would do any good to me.
First two weeks, I didn’t talk with anyone at all. Only one or two interactions here and there that’s about it. After I did manage to get into small group of employees who’ve joined recently and they allowed me to join their social circle.
At this point, I thought I was gonna be okay and will improve at socialising. But even after a month, I still feel this feeling of being subhuman level at socialising. I feel so different, I feel so not normal. I feel everyone are just better at socialising. They got this nailed down somewhere down their lives but somehow I just missed it.
I just don’t know what to do. I don’t have confidence in my voice either so most of the time I try to end conversations with few words. Idk anything really.
Edit: Wow, I didn’t expect this much reception to this post especially since it was very messy how I explained my problem. But you guys surprised me, haha. Thank you all for your advice. I’m reading every one of your replies! I love this community.
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I’d say you’re fighting the wrong enemy. You think everyone else got a skill you missed, but you’re really just comparing how you feel inside to how they look outside. That’s not a fair fight.
Sun Tzu would say to know the ground and know yourself. The ground is a new workplace, so feeling lost is totally normal. Knowing yourself means knowing you’re quiet, low on energy, and unsure of your voice. That doesn’t make you “subhuman” - it’s just information.
And you’ve also done more than you give yourself credit for. Those two weeks of silence were basically scouting, and then you got into a group of other new hires and stayed in it for a month. That’s not nothing.
The real issue is how you’ve been talking to yourself. Calling yourself subhuman is like a general tearing down his own army before the battle. And cutting conversations short probably teaches you that talking is risky, which is the opposite of what you need.
I’d go small. One short, real conversation a day, mostly with people you already know. Ask a question, listen, and let your voice/confidence get stronger by using it. You don’t need to win everyone over, just get comfortable with a few.
On a related note, perhaps consider that you could be neurodivergent (such as autistic). Neurodivergence is not a weakness - it is a difference in mental structure that can come with both strengths and weaknesses, and if (IF) you are neurodivergent, knowing these things about yourself can help you.
play pretend.
seriously. stop being you, be someone else. look at how other people interact and pretend to be like that.
it works. most people aren’t that sophisticated, they just want you to be mirror and approve of them, and they will like you if you do that. most social interaction is petty and shallow stuff, and you have to learn to embrace it if you want to be good at socializing.
Yeah this is for sure a good situation for “fake it till you make it.”
Just say hi to everyone when you see them. Once a day talk to a different person for awhile, you will find out who is more friendly. I’m not naturally social or outgoing and I’m at at ease with that, but people can interpret it as unfriendly, so I try to communicate the way each person likes, to some extent. It may not come naturally to you but YOU ARE NOT ALONE in that. We just learned by practicing.
Also it can be good to learn to remember peoples names, some people get really offended if you forget their name 😅
Just listen and ask questions.
I do that if a person wants to have a conversation with me. But real problem comes when they don’t initiate a conversation or when more people are involved.
When more people get involved I just shutdown, I only listen and barely add anything to the conversation.
When a person I know comes around me and doesn’t initiate, I feel awkward I just don’t say anything and ignore them which I feel is giving off a very rude image to them, but I can’t help. “I’m not the extrovert between us why don’t you initiate :(” is only thing I think of there.
Try to allow yourself to be genuinely curious about the other person, and to show them that, and ask questions about what you’re curious about. Social interactions are about both the listener and the talker and if you can allow yourself to be vulnerable and share what you are actually feeling it really helps, but it also helps to be interested in them and what they are feeling and thinking. So trying to be curious is often a good go to.
I would recommend scheduling a one-on-one lunch together. At lunch, think of yourself as a news reporter who needs to find all about this person. Where are they from? What was their family like? Why do they work here? What are their hobbies? See if you can get them talking about something that they have a strong opinion about.
See if you can do one of these every week.
I also think you would highly benefit from Toastmasters.
Toastmasters is the best piece of advice in this thread.
I dunno i don’t have all the context but I think you’re too hard on yourself. That’s a pretty typical interaction between two introverts standing around the kettle or something.
You gotta say hello to people, even if they don’t say hello first
Yeah I just say morning to everyone the first time I see them in the morning. That’s it, then when I’m eating my lunch they’ll sidle up and start talking and I’ll let them mostly guide the conversation while we eat, maybe I’ll even have something to add. Then when I’m some eating I have a natural out because I can just excuse myself to go back to working.
You gotta initiate if you want a conversation. If you don’t, people think you don’t want to talk.
Sure, and it also takes two to tango. Other people can initiate or just enjoy the companionable silence if they prefer.
This is less advice for at work and more just life advice in general: dress better.
I hate it because my go-to comfort clothing signals to people that I don’t want to be interacted with. But if I dress up just a teeny tiny bit, even in a very casual, low-effort way, suddenly people smile at me, make jokes to me spontaneously, give me random compliments and have more patience with me when I’m talking.
Clothes change the difficulty level of people/socialization. It makes sense but it’s also so opposed to how I’m wired. I still struggle with it.
every now and then i look at this cap like the green goblin mask
Dressing nice is easy, cheap and comfortable. If one’s idea of “nice” doesn’t fit any of those three things, they’re doing it wrong.
Cheap and comfortable at least. Easy only after you figure out what suits your figure and style. At which point I think I’d even add “fun”.
Something that I remember reading many years ago has stuck with me. In general, people like talking about themselves. Ask questions about what’s going on in their lives. If they have pets ask about those. People love their pets. Ask about their family if they have one. The harder part may be that you need to show interest. If you want to connect to these people, try to get to know them to some degree. You don’t have to know everything about them, but if some is married and has kids, get a pulse on the situation. If someone has a dog, try to remember that and ask about it. As a person with dogs, I could provide hours of stories and pictures.
Don’t be political or share strong opinions, at least until you know your audience. Find out what interests they have them ask questions about that stuff. I know something about everyone on my team that I can talk about. Maybe not tons, but enough to get a conversation started that I can pivot on. When you find common ground, share something about yourself related to that.
I keep using dogs as an example, but half of my team has at least one dog. That’s an easy ice breaker. From there you can pivot many directions.
Lol not me. I get super annoyed when someone asks personal questions.
Who are you? Why does that matter? Why do you want to know so much about my personal life? Narc? Go away.
Then this isn’t the post for you. This person asked how be be more sociable, and that happens by talking and asking questions.
I might be their coworker
There’s ways to break ice that are less intrusive than this.
You, and pretty much everyone else, are a poor judge of how people see yourself. Nine times out of ten, if you were to tell someone that you are socially awkward, their response would be, “what? No. In the the socially awkward one.”
Like anything else. Practice!
All those people that are good at socializing have been doing it since they were curious little kids talking to anyone they met and saying silly things.
Seek out low consequence interactions and practice with them. When a cashier is ringing you out, ask how their day is going. When you pass someone in public, try out the phrases that you’ll say to co-workers as you pass each other at work.
I kinda question the basic premise - whilst it’s nice to have friends at work, it’s better to build a social life outside of work. If you’re not gelling with people socially at work, oh well, it’s just work, it’s what you do to pay the bills.
I have to disagree. Some of the greatest friendships out there were developed between coworkers. people have met their spouse at work. People became friends at work, then after hanging out for realized they should start their own company. They became quite successful because of it. Making friends at work I would say is actually kind of important. You spend a large chunk of your life around people that you work with. Might as well make friends.
It’s certainly nice when it happens, but relying on it seems inadvisable.
If you’re in Australia, if someone comes around a simple, “Hey, how’s it going?” Will do, social interaction done and dusted. Most of the time the reply will be, “Good yourself?” and you reply, “Yeah good thanks.”
If it doesn’t go beyond that, it’s a satisfactory social engagement completed. If it does, great, go with the flow.
Over the years, I’ve learned the subtle art of not giving a fuck. If someone doesn’t want to engage, all good.
Not giving a fuck is actually the key. It’s harder for some people to get there but that’s where you need to end up.
For some, the idea “no one analyzes your behavior the way you do” helps. For others, it’s “if they don’t like the way you are you shouldn’t care what they think”. It’s different for everybody but getting to the point where a bad social interaction isn’t scary anymore is what you want.
I have a few questions. How old are you? Are you male or female? And exactly what do you do for work?
This is vital context. Big difference between like working in a kitchen with a bunch of people and working a software remote job.
How did OP get hired with such poor social skills?
It happens! It can be really hard or sometimes they’re able to mask for an interview or the interview is with someone who complements their awkwardness.
Anyway, very often it’s someone making the hiring decision is able to see past the awkwardness or even see it as an asset. Like I work in computing and whenever a neurotypical comes on our floor it’s like they’re the odd ones out and that’s how the manager likes it.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, whether I worked in restaurants or office buildings there was always a basic level of competence required that OP seems to be struggling with.
You’d be surprised what you can get by without
The gender part is sus, but the type of work you and your coworkers do is absolutely relevant. And in which country/culture.
The gender part isn’t “sus”, it helps in understanding context. Nothing else. But country and culture is important too
You have to take initiative sometimes. On Mondays ask someone how their weekend was and ask what they did. Towards the end of the week ask people what their weekend plans are. If your American it’s Halloween time ask people about their favorite scary/haloween movies. Just ask people about themselves and ask follow up questions. Don’t wait for people to ask you and don’t go in expecting everyone to ask questions back. If your asking questions and follow up questions you don’t have to worry about feeling normal or different because the focus isn’t on you.
So. There are two issues here.
One is finding topics to talk about. This is what small talk is for. “The weather” is a dumb topic, but it leads to all sorts of things. “Nice weather, did you do anything cool outside on the weekend?” “Bad weather, how did you cope?”
Socializing is like throwing balls back and forth as a game. You try to do something with the “ball” they throw at you and throw a question or a comment or a little story back at them. But also, if you initiate and they don’t want to play the socializing game (because they’re tired or busy or something), that’s it, no socializing.
The voice and speaking thing is something else. Not sure how to advise on that. I don’t understand having “no confidence in your voice”. Do you mean you’re too quiet? Sounds like more of a therapy thing. Maybe a choir or theater hobby group could help you? It’s probably just practice, so you should seek a place where you get that practice and train your voice?
How was the old workplace?
Maybe this one sucks.
Why Some People Are Instantly Likeable - Alain de Botton
