How can you grow to be more responsive to others

[Serph]

OK I made a thread some weeks ago where I said that I found university to be a bit too impersonal, but things have improved since then. I've made a lot more acquaintances, have a few female students that I sorta know and a few guys that I consider to be my friends.

 

I've asked a girl out a few weeks ago, but she said that while she found me interesting she was about to graduate and she was too busy and stressed out to commit to someone else. Of course, in these cases you have no means to know if it's a legimitate excuse, or a deception to reject someone else without hurting his feelings. Any way you just play it cool, don't cling, move on and try your best not to let it get to you. While it was hard to cope with in the first days, in the end I was pleased because I succeeded in not taking rejection personally, and in being confident and cool around that person with relative ease even if proposing a date to someone else is pretty intimidating.

 

So now I'm part of another club and there seems to be some interesting girls there. In the coming weeks I'm set to participate in a few parties and random reunions with such people, but there's a thing I'm wary of. I think that the hurdle that might prevent me from making a good impression in case a nice opportunity shows up is that I'm not really responsive to the humor and general small talk that people say.

 

Mostly I'd reckon it's because even if it's now gone, I've suffered from anemia and other exhausting and painful hormonal woes for a long time before, and thus learned the bad habit of being too observant and quiet, and of saving my energies unless something very important happens.

 

So it doesn't seem bad. It's not an issue of self-confidence at all, I like myself, what I am and what I know, I am lucid, and very confident. As I've been through much, nothing or no one really fazes me unless I consciously decide to let it happen. I can be scornful and indifferent when it's necessary.

 

But even if apparent aloofness, thoughness and indifference can be attractive characteristics for a guy in a woman's view, it can also make you seem awkward, oddly quiet and bored.

 

When I get to talk then it goes pretty well, I know how to interest other people, I laugh and smile a lot and have fun with the others, but when hearing others I just don't spontaneously reply back. I've grown to be pretty jaded and hard to impress; I can't help for the life of me but to find their topics of interests and their jokes extremely lame and too abject to reply to. I'd like to find ways to avoid listening to them idly for so long.

[JCD]

Maybe you need to be with people that are more mature or take yourself less seriously.

[Lunar Sonata]

Why be serious all the time. Sometimes it's fun to act like an ass, laugh at lame things, and be a silly goose.

 

A more appropriate place to act as such, I can't think of any. No matter what age or maturity level.

[Pedigree]

I guess I can say that I'm like you in this regard. I don't small talk and I do end up feeling awkward sometimes during social environments. But I'll give you what I do to cope.

 

I'll echo the sentiments of the other two posters of telling you to not take yourself too seriously. If you're going to social environment like a party, then being serious or thoughtful should be the last things on your mind.

 

You can be excused for not being responsive to small talk (I still struggle to come up with response on the spot). But responding to humor shouldn't be that hard. A laugh or at least a smile if the joke's not too funny by your standards should be enough.

 

If you don't like the topic that's being talked about try making your way around the room. Who knows, you might meet other acquaintances and they might have a conversation that's more interesting. Also if the conversation changes onto a topic that you know, you should attempt to assert yourself into the said conversation.

[Serph]

Well, making other people laugh isn't a problem when I actually bother to tell something flippant. I also reply to small talk smoothly. I smile and laugh to a good chunk of the jokes. It's mostly that I find that I don't take advantage of these things enough in a typical party/club reunion. Although I show myself as being generally happy, I'd like to be less discrete. But people come to me and really do seem to appreciate my company, so it really does seem that I come off as a normal guy all in all.

 

As for humor, I don't take myself seriously in general, but I've become pretty jaded and hard to impress, so unless something is incredibly shocking or random I'll have a hard time reacting on occasion.

 

Like two days ago we had a party in one of the college's clubs, and at the end there were me, this girl and a guy waiting for taxis. The guy told a joke, which made him and the girl giggle, but I on the other hand was really facing him without being fazed at all with my face completely blank. But earlier in the evening we did laugh together many times.

 

In the end it seems that little can help but repeated conditioning and extroversion, like in the last few months; it just needs to keep going and going. The past few years have been understandably rough and I've not interacted with many people, so for things to happen as I desire them to happen it might take time. Yes it still hurts a lot because of the past, despair and dread along with severe affective/sexual frustration still haunt me from time to time, but the good is that I make sure to never let it rule over my life. When I'm with other people I cloak this and concentrate solely on positivity; if I need to weep a bit to soothe myself then it can wait until I'm back in my apartment.

 

Also, we must probably learn to accept that certain traits of ours are defining characteristics of who we are, and that they are nearly impossible to alter. How many times did it happen to you? We are people of habits. As soon as we try to change something about ourselves, we find that very soon after we start doing it all over again, ad nauseam. But that's far from being all that bad, in fact these idiosyncrasies that we can't change can probably be turned into very positive traits if we learn to take advantage of the good that they have to offer.