aaaaaggghhh what am I doing wrong in conversation?

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I struck up a conversation with someone I don't know very well over facebook chat. We work together, we're both on the Exec for the university theatre company. She's directing one of the plays, and I'm the communications officer.

I originally messaged her to ask where the meeting tomorrow would be. I decided to risk conversing with her further and we talked a little bit about theatre, and auditioning, and it seemed to be going fine. I was talking about myself a bit, but she was still asking questions but I was worried she would think I was talking about myself too much. So I asked her,

"Are you taking Theatre and Film?"

She said no, and told me what she was studying.

I said, "Cool."

She said, "Hahaha" (What the hell? What is she laughing at?)

I ignored the laughing and said, "What year?"

She never answered me.

What happened? Did I weird her out by suddenly asking her questions? Was I not supposed to ask her questions?

I'm also feeling extra poopy because I'm supposed to design the poster for my choir's concert. I'm on the Exec. That's my job. But our director didn't like my design and decided to design it himself. But that's MY job.

I feel like such a loser right now.

Things like this happen to me regularly. It's frustrating, but try not to overanalyze it. Some people just get distracted easily...

I have no idea. Maybe she was drunk. I can't see why she'd say "Hahaha" out of nowhere. Maybe she was talking to multiple people and didn't reply because you weren't a priority, or because she didn't notice you sent a new message.

That was rude of the director to take your job. I hate how people disregard others like that.

dude half the time my own family blows me off on Facebook.


I just don't strike up conversation that much in general. Little good ever comes of it, I've noticed.

I feel driven to converse with people over facebook. I desperately want to connect with people, it just seems like I don't instinctively get it, I don't say the right things.

I'll try to stop analysing it. And ha ha, TheDoctor82, my family blows me off over facebook too. I don't take it so personally when it's them.

As for the director and poster fiasco, I was going to dress up as him for our rehearsal on Halloween as a joke, but now I don't want to. Unfortunately, I don't have another costume. I will just keep logic in mind - by Monday, my hurt feelings may have mended a little and I won't be so disappointed with him.

Maybe it was a nervous reaction, like she didn't know what to say. I get the lol' response a lot after I say 'cool.'

if people want to converse with you, they'll converse with you.

I know what you're thinking you'll get out of it; you won't. They're not gonna care in 5 minutes what you said. They're "fly-by-nighters" as I like to call them.

Put yourself in demand by being the best you that you can be...and everyone will want to talk to you; then even when you say something stupid, just apologize for it, and folks will blow it off cause they'll want your attention. If they don't blow it off, just move on, and chances are others will.

I'll share something an NT shared with me back when I was in my early twenties and working at an office.

I wasn't the best secretary in the world - and I would sometimes make errors. I was speaking to someone on the phone (another office clerk from a firm that we had to communicate with). I was following up on something. The other clerk was giving me a hard time about something and I was desparately trying to figure out what I had done wrong. My co-worker ( a very experienced secretary) could see that I was having difficulty and took the phone to deal with the other office clerk. She spoke to her for about five minutes and cleared up the problem. She told me after she hung up that the OTHER clerk had made the error and gently reminded me that "sometimes other people mess up too, you are not always the one who makes the mistake."

Now, let's get back to your situation -

You were politely chatting on FB. You asked a rather general question about what year of college someone was in. This is a very safe, appropriate question to ask when casually chatting with someone. You did not ask her life history. You did not ask her shoe size. You did not ask her something that might make a normal, well functioning person uncomfortable.

Her reply of "Ha Ha Ha" was a bit strange. You know what - other people are strange too. It is not just Aspies or people with Aspie traits that misstep in social and communication situations. Other people (including NTs) can be weird too!!

I remember being at work (at my current job, which I do much better than secretarial work) and an NT colleague asked another colleague a simple question which required "yes" or "no" as an answer. The question had to do with the work at hand and was reasonable. Her answer to him was "La La La La La" and she walked away. He shared this with me, shaking his head, saying "this just isn't normal!!" The "La La La La" person was otherwise good at her job, had friends, did volunteer work, etc. Why answer "La La La La" to a perfectly reasonable question which directly related to work - WHO KNOWS!

The point is - other people act weird too. A better way for her to terminate the conversation on chat would be, "nice talking to you. Gotta go" and then just stopped communicating. Why type "Ha Ha Ha" ????? Maybe she is related to "La La La La La" lady LOL!!

You didn't say what she said she was studying.
If it was "Cryogenics", your answer was perfect.
If it was "Women's Abuse Studies", not so much.

The only things I can think of are that she didn't think what she was studying was cool, that she didn't like it or it was boring, or that she was surprised that you thought it was cool. That or it's similar to the way I see a lot of people online saying lol when there is no reason to say it.

Poli Sci.

Which I don't know much about, but figured "Cool" was the response I should give.

I wanted to be completely honest and say "I know nothing about Political Science" but I am attempting to be less blunt and offensive.

If "Cool" was not the appropriate response, what would have been?

And if she doesn't think Poli Sci is cool, why is she studying it?

Friend, you are over analyzing this. You did nothing wrong. You did nothing that would have caused offense.

Sometimes it really is the other person with the quirks.

Think no more of it.

When you see her in person, be cordial and continue on with life.

CR

I was thinking the same thing.


In fact, several years ago I was chatting with a very hot former classmate online, and one day her boyfriend came on and told me "don't ever talk to her again"; I was just like "ok, whatever", and I didn't.

A few years later, she hit me up out of absolutely nowhere; I thought it was bizarre. Oh, she's damn good looking, but she's also a ditz.

My point is...screw 'em. You did nothing wrong.

How do I become someone that everyone wants to talk to? I try to be the best I can be, and it doesn't work. I'm too quiet/awkward/weird/different when I'm me. I don't think most people are particularly drawn to that. There have been a few, but those seem to be friendships that develop fast and are quickly over.

Your first problem seems to be that you're more focused on being the guy that everyone wants to talk to rather than actually excelling at your own trade.

You know, my mom suffered with this same problem. I've already told about her story here, but she desperately wanted the rest of the family to like her, and pay attention to her.

Most of my family was very well off; we were the only ones that weren't. One family reunion, they were talking about my cousin's recent trip to Europe. My mom chimed in "well Russell's doing well in school!" No one cared. And...who could blame them? Who would honestly care about something like that( especially when it really wasn't true)? They were fascinated by my cousins tales of Europe, not about the "red-headed stepchild" of the family doing poorly in something pretty much everyone already does.

She would also then read the same media everyone else does, and discuss the "important issues" with everyone; nothing sounded unique about her perspective; she just repeated what she heard. My Uncle actually said "she made sure she was so up to speed and knowledgeable about the issues"...except she totally didn't; well, to shallow and superficial people I guess she could sorta pass for it, but for anyone who cares to hear anything of substance, it sure wasn't what came out.

And I can assure you that my Mom was so insecure about all this, it wasn't even funny. She was self-loathing to the extreme, and often would burst into tears about her life.

The reality is...she didn't bother excelling at anything that made her unique; she just wanted to be a second-hander to everyone else, and hope desperately it would get people to like her; and it totally didn't.

Focus on excelling at something you absolutely love first. When you're the guy who desperately wants others to like him....yeah it's pretty obvious.

Ha ha, you may be right because my first reaction to your post was to think "No, no, I'm not like that, I don't want anyone to think I'm like that." Not meaning anything mean to your mom, I just don't want to be the desperate one.

I'm not sure I'm quite like that, I may not have represented myself very well.

I'm not after attention. I dislike being the centre of attention. I hate crowds, parties, clubs, bars. I'd much prefer sitting down in a friend's living room with 3 or 4 other people and watching a movie. I don't need everything to be about me. I don't want people to pay attention to me, but I do want to feel like people want to be my friend. I know I have low self confidence. I wonder why people want to be my friend, but that's because in grade school and high school, I was bullied and shamed often, so I grew up thinking that I was unlikeable. I have done some cognitive behavioural therapy around this idea of being unlikeable, but it's a hard idea to shake.

But that said, I don't want to be a social butterfly who everyone wants to talk to. I might have come across like that because I didn't choose my words carefully. I would be happy with just a few friends who I feel confident being myself around because it won't turn them off. Maybe I have that now and am too blinded by my own insecurities to recognize that. It doesn't help that the last friend I got vulnerable in front of pulled away and disappeared.

Excelling at my trade is generally the way I try to make friends. I design websites, and I use this skill to get involved with a school club, first I got onto the exec for my choir, and later for the theatre company. I also sing, and the friends I have now I made while we were in choir together.

In summary, I do want people to like me, but I'm not desperately throwing myself at everyone in order to achieve this.