To ask how to improve social skills (when your parents didn't have them)?

[roamingcat]

Hi all,

Posting here for traffic as I'm really hoping the community can help me out. As in the title really im looking for your tips or advice to help with social skills.

Sadly my parents aren't great socially and I grew up in a house where there wasn't much conversation and they took little interest in me as a person (think no asking how are you, no asking questions, not really having back and forth conversations). They didn't really have many friends and we didn't go out and do much which means I've always felt a little on the back foot socially.

Whilst generally I think I do okay - I have friends, do well at work, have a lovely partner - I do sometimes worry I could be better socially. I tend to worry most about making conversation/hosting people as this wasn't a thing I was exposed to growing up.

I would love to hear about any little tips you have for social skills or making conversation- particularly if your own family wasn't great at it! Thanks 🙂

I'll chat to anyone, even something like how was your weekend opens a conversation
Or remembering so I'll ask did you watch that film/finish the book/oh you said your sister was graduating?

My job is speaking to people all day long!

I think one of the main things is just to keep the conversation going in a relaxed way. It often doesn’t really matter what you say so much as just saying something – making an observation (‘phew it’s gone really warm hasn’t it’), paraphrasing what the other person said and empathising (‘oh god yeah it’s a nightmare isn’t it’), being genuinely interested in them and what they’re talking about. Being relaxed and easy is more important than constantly thinking of something incredibly interesting or funny to say. As the conversation goes on and you both feel relaxed, things will (tend to) then come up that you can genuinely connect over.

I completely agree with this. It reminded me that I've encountered people over the years who (for one reason or another) were incapable of agreeing with any remark, no matter how banal and uncontroversial. It's really off-putting when you meet someone for the first time. I guess these people would say 'I can't stand small talk', but what is small talk but the first tentative attempts to engage with a stranger? It's a good thing in that context.

So yes, when first meeting people the really important thing is to empathise and find common ground. Even if it's just about the weather! It's not clever or nice in that context to try and show your superiority or capacity for earth-shattering originality.

Great post 👏

Know your audience. So focus on the people you are socialising with, and 'learn' them, from their non verbal cues, what they laugh at, anything yoj see that doesn't quite resonate from their facial expression, what they talk about with animation, what they say less about. When you've done this, you will be able to adapt your engagement with them to ensure your social interactions are comfortable.
This takes time, and the people who do this best are good listeners not good talkers. So I'd start with having a stock of open (not probing!) questions to get them talking. If you show yourself to be an attentive listener, most people respond really well and consider you a great conversationalist they've got on well with, even though you've said very little.

Another thing, OP. I'm an introvert but when I say this, everyone falls about laughing. But I definitely AM.

I've learned over the years to be sociable and I really love my friends and enjoy our get-togethers. What I'm not, though, is gregarious, and I think there's a difference. I like smallish groups - I feel overwhelmed in big ones and I always need my down-time to re-charge after lots of socialising. I have never liked big anonymous parties either, but love relaxed meals with a few people.

I'm in a choir and someone started organising a Christmas meal out. My heart sank, but I went along with it. Then they asked a friend and she just said confidently 'Oh, no thanks - I don't like big group meals'. I was so impressed! I don't like big group meals either, but I didn't think you were 'allowed' not to! It was a liberating moment. I llke a group of 4-6 people I feel relaxed with, not a table of 16. And now I'm confident enough to just come out and say that.

So it's also useful to recognise what kinds of socialising you enjoy and which you don't and don't let people force you into things you know you won't like. This has definitely come with age - I was once a real people-pleaser!

Totally! More important if you’ve just met someone is establishing an easygoing, positive vibe.

haha they sound charmingly blunt 😄 I suppose at least you know what they’re really thinking (even when you don’t want to!). Can imagine the frustration when you’re just trying to keep a conversation going! :-)

Totally! More important if you’ve just met someone is establishing an easygoing, positive vibe.

I think this is probably the one thing to take away OP.

People like people who seem relaxed and happy in themselves.

In my view it doesn’t matter that much what you talk about (certainly in the first few meetings). So over engineering things by having a prepared list of discussion topics or questions won’t help you because it will feel quite forced.

Someone who can make others feel relaxed and interesting is always going to be better fun than someone who wangs on about something, even if it’s something you want to talk about.

Oh, goodness! I've those of us who have difficulty in social situations could actually read non-verbal cues, we wouldn't have a problem!

I llke a group of 4-6 people I feel relaxed with, not a table of 16. And now I'm confident enough to just come out and say that. THough a table of 16 is actually made up of 4 groups of four. Hence the pre-meal drinks scramble to get into a conversation with the group you'd like to sit with, and not end up sitting in the end seat with 3 people around you that either you hardly know or who you don't particularly want to know better.

In fairness the OP hasn't said anything to suggest she has this difficulty, has she? Unless I've missed it, her difficulty is more about establishing social connections and small talk. Had she said she couldn't read non verbal cues, the advice would obviously have been inappropriate.

@MereDintofPandiculation

Its not only non verbal cues, it’s verbal ones too.

Some people will bang on about something because it’s interesting to them without stopping to wonder if others share their fascination. This tends to be a male trait because men tend not to be socialised to think of other people’s needs in social situations. But women do it too.

It’s often just basic observation. If you were in a cafe or restaurant and started an anecdote about something that happened to you and got interrupted by someone bringing your order and the person you are speaking to goes “go on…” you know they are genuinely interested (or polite). If they don’t there’s a fair chance they don’t really care.

I find a lot of people will turn to an anecdote or topic when others in the conversation have already steered away from it: they aren’t “reading” other people’s interests because they are more focused on “landing the point”. You don’t need to be a people whisperer to pick up on people’s cues. Often it’s as simple as being selfless enough to forego the need to finish the point.

A lot of the reason people are bad conversationalists is that they are fundamentally selfish and they want to score their “point” more than they want to hear the other person.

But you can learn how to read them, with work. I helped my autistic godson figure out how to read body language, non-verbal cues like how to tell when someone’s bored etc in his teens. He put all his intelligence and considerable effort into it, and pretty much treated it as a project, like learning a foreign language. He’s now at university and having a much better time socially than anyone could have predicted back when he was a 14 year old who monologues at people and got very agitated when people used figurative language. It’s still not his native language but he gets by pretty well.

Yes, or they struggle with theory of mind to the point where they can’t quite grasp that what interests them not only doesn’t interest everybody but is unlikely to interest anybody else in the world if it’s a 30- minute monologue on parking, or their own dentistry (both my father’s pet topics).

We’d bought my dad an Adult Ed evening class on a topic he said interested him. My friend was considering taking the same class and asked him about it after term had finished. He replied with a long, closely-argued monologue about the parking available on the university campus, how best to time your arrival to miss day staff leaving, and the trickiness of the car park barrier. She said ‘But what was the course itself like?’ and he said ‘Oh, fine, I can’t remember much of it’ and went back, with evident relish, to his discussion of parking, and how he’d found the perfect spot close to the nearest door to the classroom etc. I think he was about to draw her a diagram when I interrupted.😀

A lot of the reason people are bad conversationalists is that they are fundamentally selfish. OK, that explains why social awkward people are treated as if they are bad people - it's because people think they are bad people. Time to leave this thread, I think.

Yes!

Various points here:

1. I find restaurants so noisy nowadays that hearing conversation is really difficult. I don't find them conducive to getting to know people you've just met!

2. In the group I'm talking about, I do know everyone pretty well. So it's not that I'm rejecting a chance to get to know new people - I just don't want to spend the evening shouting across the table at people I already know but perhaps don't need to be close friends with.

3. I'm a cafe person really - a nice cup of coffee in a quiet cafe with one or two other people is what I enjoy! That's where you can have a proper conversation.

I know what you mean about some restaurants, especially ones with the loud music. I might go to that sort of event to show the other people that I value their company but on a practical level I'd probably stay quite quiet and not get much out of it socially.

Agree with the points about bad conversation even if some of it is hard to listen to. I think some people do need to be taught how to do conversation, ideally when younger as I imagine bad habits like monologuing can be hard to shift later in life.

This is a very useful thread. Thanks, OP.

I’m absolutely not saying all people who struggle with social situations are selfish. I understand it’s much more complex than that.

But I think for a lot of people just learning to take a bit of a step back in conversations goes quite a long way.

@EmoCourt

I totally recognise this syndrome from my dad who was very much like this (albeit not about parking).

I think it is something people can learn and I think parents can and should teach. If your kid goes on and on about football or DC Comics or whatever you have an obligation sometimes to kindly guide them. My daughter has a “thing” that she’s obsessed with and goes on about ad nauseam. I don’t want to crush her interest in it but she also needs to learn that she will bore people if she only talks about that subject. So I will say: “I like talking about x but I like talking about other things too sometimes. Remember not everyone wants to talk about x.”

I also think partners can do it. Men are particularly bad at “reading” other people’s interests. When I first met my partner he would send me live updates when his football team was playing which I found really irritating. After about six months I sat him down and said: “Look I love you but I couldn’t care less whether X FC is winning or X United. I don’t need to know this.”

People sometimes don’t help their loved ones much here. You wouldn’t allow someone you loved to go out with soup down the front of their shirt. Why would you let them bore people?

I used to know this woman...who now lives abroad.

She was upper-middle class, very nice and friendly and came over as shy, but was socially pretty sophisticated. She had travelled a lot and it was her favourite topic of conversation. She'd worked in the Turks and Caicos Islands as a young woman, and had clearly loved it.

She would launch into incredibly long anecdotes at every opportunity so that I came to dread the words 'When I was in the Turks and Caicos..." She absolutely wasn't boastful or showing off in any way - it was just her favourite time/topic.No-one else could get a word in for many minutes and it wasn't really a subject many people could relate to or add their two-penn'orth.

So I'd say, on the whole, avoid anecdotes when socialising - especially long ones. Of course it's sometimes appropriate and welcome - but a) keep them short and to the point and 2) read the room and check people are OK with it.

I once witnessed this woman's husband be very cruel at a party - I suppose he was embarrassed by her doing this, but it wasn't very nice and there was an awkward silence afterwards. He interrupted her and said 'Sue (not her real name..), let me explain the way conversation works. First, you say something brief, and then someone else says something back...etc etc' That was mean of him and very disloyal - he could have mentioned his concerns privately - but she was clearly quite unaware a) that she was doing it and b) that it could sometimes be boring for others.