Reflection on a recent social event and sharing observations

Post Reply New Topic

I was at the house of a good friend of mine and her husband for dinner yesterday. Another couple was also there. After dinner we played a board game. I've been thinking about some parts of how I dealt with the situation, the different choices I could have made, and their pros and cons.

While waiting for the game to start, and in between turns of the game, I played with things a lot. I played with my cutlery - looking at the ceiling light reflected in the flat knife, and in the front and back of the spoon, and balancing the cutlery on each other to make a little structure. I played with and examined the game tokens - noticing that the plastic game coins had patterns on them that showed how the plastic had poured into the mould, and noticing that the gold game coins were translucent while the silver ones weren't, and so on. From time to time I commented on the little things I noticed, like the observations I made about the game coins.

At some point I got a bit self-conscious about saying my observations, because I knew they were unrelated to anything else anyone was talking about, and maybe people would find them uninteresting and annoying interruptions. That got me thinking about what different ways I could have acted, and their positives and negatives.

I could have not played with stuff so much. I know that while many people fiddle with things some, most people don't play with things nearly as in-depth as I do, and as I did in that situation. Playing with things as much as I did is weird. I didn't need to play with things; I wouldn't have gotten stressed or upset if I didn't. It was entertaining and enjoyable, though. And it was not disruptive. It was not interrupting anyone else, or hindering playing the game, or anything like that. It was doing no harm. So I don't think there was any reason to have played with things less.

I could have played with stuff the way I did, but refrained from commenting on my observations. That way I would have still entertained myself by playing with things, but could be sure that I wasn't annoying people with irrelevant observations about things they don't find noteworthy. At a glance this looks like it could be the best option. But there is something that such an evaluation doesn't take into account. By commenting on the things that I observe, I am trying to be interactive. I am sharing a bit of the world as I see it with others, and offering them the chance to join in with me. If I refrained from sharing those observations, I would be being less social.

So I have two considerations that I want to balance in future similar situations. On the one hand, I don't want to annoy people. On the other hand, I don't want to completely refrain from sharing such bits of my world. I'm not sure how I want to balance those. I may want to share my observations less, but not completely stop sharing them. And I do want to try to be careful about when I share them - to try to avoid interrupting or breaking up the flow of conversation. (I think I was mostly careful about that already, though.)

I hope I don't end up with a lasting tendency to feel self-conscious about sharing such observations. I didn't used to feel self-conscious about it.

Thanks for the response. I think you're right that I shouldn't worry.