I self identify as an introvert. When socializing, I do better with smaller groups or even one on one, and I actively struggle with larger groups of relative strangers. And I’m just lousy at the whole small talk chit-chat thing. But I make an effort. Working at home, if I didn’t make an effort to get out there and socialize, I’d practically be a shut-in.<\/p>\n
And yet, as awkward and uncomfortable as I can feel whilst making small talk, I am repeatedly shocked at how much worse some other people are! I attended a group breakfast-social thing this morning, and arrived earlier than expected. So, I ended up chatting a bit with another fellow who arrived early. He was nearly mute, so I was pushed into being the one to initiate conversation. Or we could have sat in silence, I guess. I started making with the chit chat. I asked good questions, avoided stuff that could be answered with a “yes” or “no”, tried to draw him out. And still, I got monosyllabic answers, didn’t get any corresponding questions about myself, and overall was met with flat affect.<\/p>\n
So I’m weak, but I’m better than some. Being social is hard<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I self identify as an introvert. When socializing, I do better with smaller groups or even one on one, and I actively struggle with larger groups of relative strangers. And… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/laughingmonkey.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/laughingmonkey.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/laughingmonkey.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laughingmonkey.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laughingmonkey.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/laughingmonkey.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/laughingmonkey.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laughingmonkey.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laughingmonkey.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}