Can you fake enthusiasm?

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I can do this mostly with clothes shopping. I find clothes shopping the most boring thing in the world. But I've just made a new friend who likes browsing around the shops, and I really enjoy her company and we get along fine, and I like spending the day out with a friend. It really improves my social life. But when we browse around the shops, I find I feel really, really bored, but I don't like to say anything or act bored, because I feel I'm being boring or even a bit rude. So I've found I've got really good at faking enthusiasm with the clothes. I search through each rail and say, ''oh that's nice - I like that'', when I'm not even interested. Well, it's not that I'm not interested. It's just I get so anxious of crowds, and when there are people standing right next to me whilst in clothes shops, I feel really anxious. You know clothes shops are narrow, and have a lot of rails everywhere, and have a lot of gangways, and where ever I stand, there are always people trying to get past or are standing right up close to me, and once I felt like screaming at them. But instead I just picked out a nice-looking top and said, ''I like this.'' And when my friend sees something what looks rather nice, I just say, ''I can picture you in that'' or if it wouldn't really suit her I just say, ''yes, that is nice.'' I always put on this enthusiastic tone of voice too, which works. Now she thinks I really love clothes shopping.

Anyone else good at faking enthusiasm?

I think shopping for clothes is GREAT!!


(if you believe me, then, yes, I'm good at faking enthusiasm)

Yes. I hate clothes shopping too. I haven't bought brand new clothes in years. Most of my clothes come from second hand shops...mostly because I refuse to pay $20 for a single pair of jean shorts when I could get ten of them for that price.

I only like to shop for art supplies and things related to my special intrests.

I probably can't fake it very well. I have a hard enough time showing real enthusiasm.

I can't fake enthusiasm. If I try it comes out very... eh... fake.

Maybe for about 3-5 seconds. After that it just takes too much effort.

In the form of sarcasm, then yes.

It never occured to me that I would want or need to fake enthusiasm until you just said that... I guess that means I'm bad at it? But I've never tried.

You sound like you're doing a hell of a better job of faking enthusiasm than I could! I don't get enthusiastic even when its genuine!

I actually find it - like most excessive emotional outbursts - really really annoying.

No, I am appalling at it, and even when I do genuinely feel enthusiastic, I find that I still behave rather stiffly. I think that might be social anxiety however because apparently when a child, I would jump up and down at things.

This is one thing I'm absolutely not capable of. The closest I can get is a situation like this:

Person A: "(says something that's supposed to be fascinating)"

Person B: "(directed at me) Isn't that wonderful?"

Me: "(half-hearted smile) Oh. Yeah. Terrific."

I think most people fake interest, especially in the 90% of conversations that are boring. It gets exhausting after a while though.

You know you're right! When I actually see really overly excited people I believe they're faking it because its hard for me to believe that anyone can get that happy.

I can take a little bit of interest and make it bigger, but I can't make enthusiasm out of nothing.

I like clothes shopping for 30-45 minutes, though.

I also hate making noise. I don't laugh out loud or scream or yell or exclaim loudly when in pain or under any other circumstances.

I do, I have to admit, flap my hands when I get really excited.