Can you tell if someone is bored when you're talking to them

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League_Girl
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05 Aug 2012, 2:43 am

btbnnyr wrote:
Maybe my stfu nonverbal cue looks eggsacly like eberryone else's please keep talking yes please nonverbal cue.



I have had strangers start talking to me randomly about their personal problems and I am not interested. Me reading or playing my game doesn't seem to tell them to shut up. And they say we don't pick up on that stuff? Either they also can't read those cues or they just don't care. That is my hint right there that someone isn't listening. If they are reading or playing their game as I am talking to them, they are not interested.

It be rude of me to tell them "I am trying to read here, I don't want to talk or listen" or tell them "I am not interested in hearing about your problems."


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Hagakure
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05 Aug 2012, 3:23 am

When talking to people in general it is not that nice to waffle on about anything..... If you take up a vast percentage of the conversation you are probably boring them.
If you are talking about special interest topics you should already know how to condense what your saying into a few mins or less.... It is your special interest.

If you dont get a lot of eye contact back, or the person is doing something at the time, or you get short yea responses best to give up on the convo.

How long has it been since you have asked to hear about someone elses life or hobby and actually listened and been interested in it.



outofplace
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05 Aug 2012, 4:14 am

Hagakure wrote:
When talking to people in general it is not that nice to waffle on about anything..... If you take up a vast percentage of the conversation you are probably boring them.
If you are talking about special interest topics you should already know how to condense what your saying into a few mins or less.... It is your special interest.

If you dont get a lot of eye contact back, or the person is doing something at the time, or you get short yea responses best to give up on the convo.

How long has it been since you have asked to hear about someone elses life or hobby and actually listened and been interested in it.


Define "waffling on". How can you tell when you have spent too much time speaking without letting another person speak? It's not that obvious to many of us.

Many of us have no idea if we are getting eye contact back. We don't typically like eye contact in the first place as we find it creepy and odd, so it is unlikely we are even looking at their eyes in the first place!

As far as asking about someone else's hobbies and interests, I haven't done that for at least 8 hours now...maybe even 9!


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redrobin62
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05 Aug 2012, 4:49 am

No. I can't tell.



Joe90
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05 Aug 2012, 9:00 am

Yes I can. Sometimes people nod their head rather quickly as I'm talking, as if to say, ''yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, I'm bored now''. Then I just finish the sentence I'm on then stop. Sometimes I can sense other signs that somebody is getting bored but I still choose to go on. That doesn't mean I'm unaware of their thoughts though, that's just me getting carried away and not wanting to finish what I'm saying.


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05 Aug 2012, 9:09 am

From what I've observed, looking around, not joining in the conversations or asking questions, or fiddling with things is a sign of boredom in most people, and making mmmm noises too or saying "yeah" a lot, though some people seem to do that when they're concentrating too. And suggesting other topics, or bringing up another topic usually means they're fed up or bored with the one you're currently discussing.



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05 Aug 2012, 11:48 am

btbnnyr wrote:
Maybe my stfu nonverbal cue looks eggsacly like eberryone else's please keep talking yes please nonverbal cue.


:D :D :D That's Asperger's taken to the extreme of irony, you should do AS Stand-Up Comedy!

Yellowtamarind, I don't think so, because a colleague complained to me about another colleague who talks too much, and they're both NT. And lots of NTs complain about other NTs going on and on about themselves.


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05 Aug 2012, 3:49 pm

Colinn wrote:
Lack of eye contact, fidgeting, and limited input such as, yeah, uh huh, oh, ok. These are indicators that the person is most likely uninterested.


I wouldn't really know unless they started turning away or looking at their watch repeatedly, oops, I've probably missed all the ones you stated!


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nrau
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05 Aug 2012, 4:40 pm

I had this huge problem in the past. Well, I still do. I just can't tell when they are and if they are bored of not. If they are not telling me they are, that is.



GiantHockeyFan
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05 Aug 2012, 5:12 pm

No wonder I have no luck with the ladies. I do all these things, especially the watch: I have no idea why. Maybe I can't tell if I'm boring anyone because I unintentionally do all of these things and it's not because I'm bored, I just can't sit or stand still. I have gotten better though: I do tell people not to take what I do as I sign I'm not listening, I'm actually listening very closely. If I look at someone in the eye too long I find it hard to process what they are saying.



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05 Aug 2012, 8:41 pm

When I get really into/exited about something that I'm talking about I just don't pay attention to other people for signs of boredom and consequently go on too long............with my mom and my close friend I'm like this. Apparently I often go on too long about things/ give too much detail. However when I'm paying attention I can tell by things like the person stops nodding, responding, asking questions about the topic , or the person was looking at me and now they're looking away/down. I didn't realize that changing the topic in a conversation could be a cue that someone's bored with twhat I'm saying until very recently........I always just thought the person had a poor attention span if they kept trying to change the subject in a conversation.....I'd make a joke/comment about how distractable they were (sometimes) but then always change the subject back. :oops:



nrau
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05 Aug 2012, 10:10 pm

daydreamer84 wrote:
When I get really into/exited about something that I'm talking about I just don't pay attention to other people for signs of boredom and consequently go on too long............with my mom and my close friend I'm like this. Apparently I often go on too long about things/ give too much detail. However when I'm paying attention I can tell by things like the person stops nodding, responding, asking questions about the topic , or the person was looking at me and now they're looking away/down. I didn't realize that changing the topic in a conversation could be a cue that someone's bored with twhat I'm saying until very recently........I always just thought the person had a poor attention span if they kept trying to change the subject in a conversation.....I'd make a joke/comment about how distractable they were (sometimes) but then always change the subject back. :oops:


I was like that when I was, like, 15
I'm sorta surprised that your environment didn't force self-consciousness on you yet.
Maybe you're stronger. Maybe you're lucky.



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06 Aug 2012, 2:17 am

nrau, you raise a very important point for me. I'm 50, and it's been just a couple months that I've started noticing when I'm monologuing and the other has left the dialogue. I constantly wonder how it can be that realizations took me so long. I was 40 when I first realized that people weren't chronically "busy" for years, they just didn't want to hang with me and there was no sense in waiting for them. It's for sure not luck, because it's not like it didn't seriously harm my life. I think it may be a more pronounced lack of ToM than other aspies suffer from.

For example, there's someone who sometimes gives me money to help buy food for the stray cats around here. I automatically assumed his caring for the cats would make him very interested in how I spend that money, what the strays eat, how happy the strays are when I'm able to afford real meat because of his financial help, how much his help makes a difference, etc. Not so. He'd be a lot happier if I just took the money, and instead of all this blah, blah, just said thank you in the name of the strays and left.


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nrau
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06 Aug 2012, 4:10 am

Moondust wrote:
nrau, you raise a very important point for me. I'm 50, and it's been just a couple months that I've started noticing when I'm monologuing and the other has left the dialogue. I constantly wonder how it can be that realizations took me so long. I was 40 when I first realized that people weren't chronically "busy" for years, they just didn't want to hang with me and there was no sense in waiting for them. It's for sure not luck, because it's not like it didn't seriously harm my life. I think it may be a more pronounced lack of ToM than other aspies suffer from.

For example, there's someone who sometimes gives me money to help buy food for the stray cats around here. I automatically assumed his caring for the cats would make him very interested in how I spend that money, what the strays eat, how happy the strays are when I'm able to afford real meat because of his financial help, how much his help makes a difference, etc. Not so. He'd be a lot happier if I just took the money, and instead of all this blah, blah, just said thank you in the name of the strays and left.


Haha, I don't think so. It was 100% luck. A world were people are conscious of how others perceive them and constantly adjust accordingly is not a happy world. It's a stressful and tiring world. It's far better not to know and simply keep doing what you want.
At any rate, once you get conscious of your environment enough you actually start fighting to not let it affect you. In that case, wouldn't it be better to not become conscious in the first place?



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06 Aug 2012, 6:18 am

No, but a friend of mine helps me be able to tell by either telling me that she's bored or using a facial expression that she taught me to recognize.


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06 Aug 2012, 7:48 am

I can always tell if someone is bored but whether or not I stop talking is entirely dependent on who I'm with. If my Mum looks bored, I usually stop for a moment and think "well dear, as exhilarating as repetitive small-talk concerning the rapidly increasing price of tea bags is, I'd rather have a more in-depth conversation about something that's actually important" and continue talking about American law enforcement! :twisted:

I know it seems selfish but it irritates me when NTs want aspies to stop talking about their special interests when they have nothing substantial to talk about themselves.