Conversation

[Ghoul King]

Do you difficulty finding a topic of conversation to initiate?

I constantly find myself with thoughts that I want to share with
others, memories and ideas and analyses, if only to get it out of my
head and off my 'task que', but I almost always find myself at a loss
when it comes time to start a conversation. I struggle to recall why I
thought it was relevant or interesting, worry that the topic will be
inappropriate and a social blunder (I detest failure of any sort, most
especially my own failures), and just generally forget what I was
thinking and why. At home I find it to be less of an issue, insofar as
I generally find an opportunity to slip in relevant thoughts amongst
the constant jabbering of my family members (I don't dislike the
constant talking, excepting when I am trying to relax or accomplish
something important and it moves beyond vaguely annoying into actively
disruptive), but my interactions with other people are generally
stilted and uncomfortable because I find myself unable to open up any
type of conversation piece at all. (Perhaps in part because I tend to
have no interest in talking about current events of any sort) This
includes, of course, that any time a conversation initiated by someone
else draws to a point where there is no easy launch point for further
conversation about the topic that I am almost never able to redirect
it into something I desire to talk about.

I especially have difficulty articulating why I feel something is
relevant. I have memories of my childhood that come to mind when I
read posts in this group, memories that I want to put forth and
explain, and yet I find myself unable to justify to myself a reason to
do so. It's not that I object to people 'seeing me' or whatever, I
only withhold information that I feel can be used against me, but I am
always left feeling vaguely uneasy, and often end up withdrawing
entirely. I have, on several occasions, become interested in an
interactive website (Forums, especially), joined, introduced myself,
done a few things, and ultimately withdrawn feeling as though it was a
foolish decision to ever join at all. (Sometimes I remain adamant this
is the case. Other times I wonder if I'm neurotic and if it would've
worked out fine if I'd stayed)

Thus far I have remained a part of only two forums for any extended
period of time at all: the first was a roleplaying forum, and the
second was a branching off of the culture/social network I was
familiar with of the first. The former held my attention for quite a
while, something around two years if I recall correctly, and the
second one... well, technically I continued to post for two years, but
in all honesty I was largely going through the motions, only sticking
around because it kept seeming like it was about to return to the old
roleplaying days of yore that had originally grabbed my attention. (It
never did)

Speaking of, I'm kind of wondering if anybody else here ever had any
success with roleplaying. I derived a fair amount of satisfaction from
the whole thing. It's the only time in my life I've ever felt truly
creative, and I've been trying ever since to re-create the formula
that allowed me to generate so many and varied settings, characters,
cultures, powers, and so on, only without needing to be part of a
forum. (I've yet to find another forum that 'set me off' like that
first one did) If I'm following some of these threads correctly, it's
a fairly typical trait to have a limited imagination, which definitely
describes my life in general, and yet I was amazingly creative while I
was a part of this forum, so I'm wondering if anybody else has had a
similar explosion of creativity. (Perhaps not in response to a
roleplaying environment in specific: Warhammer 40,000 apparently
encourages players to create their own armies, not only in composition
but also culture, history, leadership, etc, and players take this to
its' fullest potential)

Also, is there any forum culture here I should be aware of? My general
feeling is there isn't much of a formal set of rules and regulations
like you see on most online cultures (Formal not being the same thing
as 'officially acknowledged'), but then, I find I'm a poor judge of
what is and is not desired behavior. I've not seen any 'hello world'
threads, for instance, which are a common trend in most forums. (A
trend I've never really understood myself...) Is talking too much a
problem? I have consistently gotten a negative reception for my long,
winding speech about anything and everything but especially myself on
every internet culture I've ever interacted with, but the folks here
seem plenty long-winded themselves.

[sparx104]

I don't really have problems with starting conversations about things
I want to know - I normally just ask (something which can get you into
trouble! - I have to check a mental "list of rules" to make sure I'm
not going to offend someone). Although once the topic is on the list
of things not to ask I have problems asking about it in the future -
not knowing if it's going to offend someone means you just don't say
it. This can break down if I'm tired or stressed as checking the list
and auditing what I say requires a lot of effort to remember to do.

I do have problems changing a running conversation to a topic I want
to talk about - I need to pay a lot of attention to conversations in
order to follow them, this generally means I forget to add what I want
to say or can't spare the mental effort to figure out how to insert
what I want. Again, if tired or otherwise not really 100% I will just
ask straight out and interrupt whatever's going on. Then I'll realise
I shouldn't have done it and be annoyed at myself.

As for explaining why I feel something is relevant I have to remember
that just because I know something it doesn't follow that other's do.
Unless really thinking about it it doesn't occur to me under normal
conditions that other people can not know something I do.

I have been a member of a few different forums but rarely post more
than a few times. I have spent more time on technical forums but
usually post about a topic and then walk away - I rarely go back to a
post to check for replies (same applies to comments on blogs). As you
mentioned - I'm not so much concerned about attention, more that I've
"interfered"? - not sure really. I also have trouble with compliments
and such - if I can provide assistance or knowledge then I do, I don't
expect anything back.

I've never been into roleplaying - I just don't have the imagination
for it. There seems to be some need to "put yourself in someone
else's shoes" which I just can't do. Seems a popular pastime these
days tho with Second Life and the such. I do play video games but
never "get into" the story or the characters - they're just a way to
waste time. Same goes for films, books etc - unless there's something
technical to pay attention to I'll lose interest.

As for this group - I've not come across any particular "rules". I
think we're all pretty relaxed about most things. From my point of
view I am trying simply to understand this problem so the more
information the better if it leads to something equating an answer.
As you say - often people don't appreciate talking at length about a
problem but I find that writing stuff down, at length, helps me to
sort it out in my head and work with it - 5 years in the mental health
system - talking - hasn't helped else.

["Didyouknow...."]

yeah I definitely get that, I'll walk around for days with a topic
I've just read about or a conclusion I've come to and not be able to
find any-one to share with. I wonder if it makes me kind of mentally
stuck, that I can't pay full attention to other "less interesting"
thing's, that may be more important, until I've unloaded.

Compliment's make me self conscious, but I have learned the rule, or
possibly just the least wanky thing you can do, which is say "thanks"
and that's it. Sound's easy but at the time but your inclined to down
play it or brush it off, which might make some-one feel their
compliment was rejected, or you might start inflating yourself, which
makes you look like a jerk.

Also rules for when some-one tells you some problem's they have and
how they feel about it , and this ones really hard to remember to
actually do, say "I understand", and that's it, other wise you start
to narrate your own experiences, "When I was a boy...", which annoys
people, or you start to give advise, which is generally not what
people need, they need to feel supported and then they can come to
their own decisions, for better or worse.

And yes we are a long winded bunch. Feeling's can be expressed with
syllables..... can't think how to finish that thought so I'm gonna let
it float.

[Ghoul King]

I've never really been into compliments as a response to feedback; I'd
rather have feedback in return. Compliments is basically like giving a
dog a belly-rub or some such, in that it conveys approval, but is not
necessarily useful in an immediately meaningful sense. I'm not much of
a 'help others if I can' type of person, I prefer give-and-take, which
is part of why I waffle when it comes to joining forums: usually, I
think I'm going to actually get something out of being a part of the
community, and after a few days of observation/communication (And
often being completely ignored) I find myself wondering why I ever
thought I'd get anything out of the given community. I can't recall
ever posting a bit of help and then just leaving- I'm too curious
about the consequences of my actions (The more you know, and all
that), and I never become part of something just to provide a bit of
help.

I suppose I might do such a thing if a website had a more anonymous,
painless form of interacting, but usually it's more effort than it's
worth to go through all the work of signing up for a forum, waiting
for the confirmation E-mail, signing in with the screen-name and
password, figuring out THIS particular forum's interface, and then
FINALLY actually writing out three sentences and leaving.

I've never really understood this notion of needing to 'get inside the
character's head' for roleplaying and writing stories. I always
focused on ability sets and interesting culture, history, equipment,
etc. Personality was a secondary point, and I kept it simple:
establish at least one goal (Usually 2-3, with one being the primary
goal, and any others being subordinate or secondary goals), and define
their priorities, which often was an incidental effect of establishing
the goal(s). (The man who joins the police out of a desire to Serve
And Protect has a rather different set of priorities from the man who
joins the police out of a desire to Lock Up The Criminal Element, and
it's fairly obvious what several of the differences there are) From
there is was easy to anticipate what any given character's behavior
would be like: what they would object to, be upset by, be pleased by,
be depressed by, etc. A character fighting to Return To Normal whose
reasons are because Being Undead Is Physically Unpleasant And I Scare
My Friends doesn't require me to understand or anticipate their
emotional states or apply any significant imaginative skill: it's
closer to a crude physics system, wherein all the pieces behave in
particular ways for particular reasons that can be readily understood
if the underlying principles are understood. And since I MADE the
character, by definition I knew what the underlying principles are.
There is no guesswork.

Getting into other people's heads is not, in my experience, a skill
that is in any way, shape, or form applicable to the creation and
application of fictional personalities. It's an important skill for
working out what other people are doing and why: when I was a child in
school, I was sent into the corner. At the time, I had no idea why,
because I'm terrible at conceptualizing other people's thinking
processes, and reading the clues in their behavior that indicate their
motivations and goals. In retrospect I recognize that this was an
attempt to punish me, to humiliate me into not wanting to do whatever
it was I'd done (I honestly have no recollection what I'd done to be
sent into the corner: I didn't even recognize a causality between my
behavior and being sent into the corner. I assumed this was a game, or
that perhaps I would turn around when the five minutes were up and
find a surprise waiting for me), but at the time I had no idea. And I
still run into this regularly, wherein I realize only months or even
years after an event originally occurred do I understand the other
person's behavior, the whys and hows.

But I never found this lack to interfere with my ability to roleplay.
My ability to succeed in interfacing successfully with the other
roleplayers on a social level, yes, which was its' own set of
problems, (A number of my RPGs failed due to alienating players, as
opposed to lack of GMing skill on my part) but not my ability to
create interesting and compelling characters (And cultures, countries,
species, objects, systems of magic, etc) and then implement them in
the RPG in a consistent and enjoyable manner.

So I've never really gotten this idea that you need to 'get inside
their head'. A simple system of goals and priorities ('values', if it
helps to think of them that way) pretty fully encompasses human
behavior in a realistic manner. The main reason understanding other
people is complicated is because of the need to, using limited and
often misleading information (Just because someone SAYS they joined
the police force to Serve And Protect doesn't mean that it's TRUE),
parse out their possible motivations, intentions, etc using only the
superficial clues available to you. This is all utterly bypassed if
you invented the character yourself.

Anyway, by 'rules' I don't so much mean a link to 'The List Of Rules
To Follow' as I mean the social contract. Most cultures have a million
Dos and Don'ts that will never be explicitly stated or explained under
any circumstances but will nonetheless employ social pressure tactics
to 'encourage' you to remain in line with them. (Approving reactions
to people introducing themselves in the Hi! thread before doing
anything else, disapproving reactions to people posting for the first
time ever in a serious discussion without so much as a 'hello') As I
said in the first place, I get the impression there is no such thing
here (The irrelevant spam being utterly ignored instead of filled with
swearing and insults is telling), but I still wanted to clarify my
meaning.

I don't so much have trouble devoting myself fully to other thoughts
when unable to share as I find myself frustrated that I can't put it
out there and get some feedback. Even if I'm fully confident that I'm
right about something, I still prefer to see what other people have to
say as a comparison point, especially since I am sometimes completely
and utterly wrong. Plus, there doesn't seem much of a point to
realizing something important and useful if I can't spread the
information around and make society as a whole more intelligent,
aware, and pleasant.

As I noted earlier, I've never been into compliments. I've also never
really had issues from being uncomfortable with dealing with them. I
don't focus on downplaying it, or playing it up, or trying to accept
it graciously, as I basically go 'that's nice, but do you have
anything of meaning to contribute?'

To be fair, I've pissed off a lot of people with that, but I honestly
can't find it in me to care. I prefer stuff of substance to emotional
masturbation. Emotional masturbation doesn't make my life better. Real
feedback does.

I rarely have people unloading their emotional problems on me, but
when it does come up I've never found 'I understand' to be a
particularly useful response. I ask them if they've tried (Insert
Useful Idea here), and tell them what all else I think might help, and
I completely ignore the emotional content of their response. Which is,
yes, giving advice, but honestly, if people want emotional support
they can get themselves a teddy bear and hug it. Or they can resolve
their problems so that the unpleasant emotions go away. And wouldn't
that be better?

Mind you, I don't actually have any friends right now, and this is not
exactly a coincidence, but then, I probably WOULD still have a friend
if the last one I had hadn't resorted to stealing from my family to
feed his drug habit, instead of asking for help. I know he was a
latchkey kid, but geez, would it really have killed him to try asking
just once?... anyway, I had to politely end that relationship (We were
moving, which was a good excuse, but it's not like we couldn't have
kept it up if we wanted to. It wasn't cross-country or anything), and
since then I've never had any friends.

I've never found my feelings can be expressed with simple emoticons. I
still have feelings. They're just sort of stunted and childlike. I
talk a lot more than other people yes, but honestly, I'm convinced
it's because of this whole 'reading between the lines' thing other
people do, not because their experiences are so much more readily
quantified. I've had FAR too many people react to my behavior in a
manner that only makes sense if they're 'reading between the lines'
and finding things that don't exist because I'm thoroughly transparent.