Ataraxis wrote:
Atomsk wrote:
As soon as the topic changes to a special interest, I become extremely chatty and enjoy conversation immensely. Other than that, I'm bad at conversing and I dislike it - one word/syllable answers are common, as well as flat out ignoring the person talking to me.
That is me exactly. If it's about one of my interests, I get very talkative and even quite animated, "talking with my hands" as some people say. And when people try going down a different conversational path, I usually just ignore what they've said and bring up another point about my interest. It's a pretty strange feeling, because I can see myself doing it, almost as an outside observer. It's like someone flips a switch and suddenly I'm gregarious and witty, and can talk and talk and talk. But when the subject gets changed, it's like someone shuts the switch off and I go back to quietly observing what's going on around me, or I wander off and find something else to occupy me, usually the latter. I have no patience if people are talking about something that holds no appeal for me.
Flipping a switch...I like that analogy. It's like that for me, except that I have one switch for: interested in the conversation, but only to observe, because I have learned to shut up or risk dominating the entire thing and losing the topic.
People tend to change topics when I start to "take over." I think it's because I will take control and then no one will be interested....
Thus, I never get to talk about my interests. Ever.
Well, that's an exaggeration.