The kind where if you have to be around people you feel more comfortable in a group than with just one other person?
I get nervous around “dead air” if I’m with people so if I’m the only other person I feel pressure to be interesting and it’s exhausting. If there’s a group of people it’s not so bad because it divides the responsibility of being entertaining around all of us so I don’t have to worry if I’m boring. I can just chill and let other people talk.
Plus I find I’m better at bouncing off of others than initiating conversation.
:yea:
How do people have one on one conversations without running out of things to talk about
How do you run out of things to talk about? You don’t have a mental encyclopedia of weird animal facts to fall back on like how penguins practice prostitution for the shiny stones they use to make their nests?
I could talk about how there’s a species of jumping spider than spends hours planning their ambushes, even going well out of line of sight of their prey, because they hunt other jumping spiders and evolved to outsmart them, or the fun fact that there is a very very low but non-zero chance that someone peeing in a swimming pool can cause an explosion, but people usually don’t take to those
there is a very very low but non-zero chance that someone peeing in a swimming pool
Please elaborate on this.
As a third wheel I often do a lot of negative ruminating, but it’s not all bad…definitely better than the excruciating feeling when the conversation completely dies and the other person slowly pulls out their phone. This happened to me twice on the same day recently, good times.
I think what’s so frustrating about it is that I used to be able to hold decent conversations with most people. I was never a silver-tongued devil, but I could hold down decent conversations with most people and endless conversations with closer friends and family. Now the only people I feel like I can have a good conversation with are my dad and my therapist. I remember spending hours and hours bullshitting with one friend or another…now I dread the inevitable awkward silence if we have to be in the car alone for even 5 minutes.
Totally, I find that physical exercise helps me deal with it, especially, weirdly, kickboxing. I feel there’s a parallel between learning to be comfortable in the tense dead air between blows, and learning to be comfortable in the tense dead air between words
Performing arts do the same thing. Silence is a part of a change in mood and conversation, nobody can effectively make a choice on stage without experiencing it. Sometimes it’s for less than a second, sometimes it lasts minutes but it always preceedes anything important. In music there is something similar where musicians will try to be loud, everything always loud all the time, but what was meant to be epic music becomes a drone of indecision.
Some people really struggle with putting their mark on a situation. There is a timidity that most people have that must be beaten out of you before entering the ring, or stepping onto a stage. It’s so helpful and freeing once you finally get it.
I’m most comfortable in a group of 3-4, yeah.
Shit, it’s been half a year and I still haven’t made good on my new year’s resolution to come out as polyamorous.
Depends on the 1 other person and the crowd
