Bad timing in everyday interaction

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Hello! I would like to read some of your experiences in a specific area of communication: Timing and turn-taking.

There is one pretty awkward complication that I keep experiencing quite often when talking to other people, and I’m afraid I will have to begin with a boring introduction to describe what I mean …

I am not too sociable and mostly interact in order to generate income, or when a neighbour accidentally catches me at the mailbox. I’ve been able to hold fulltime jobs, and I’m very careful and friendly with other people (both at and outside the workplace), but always uncomfortable.

Anyway, I am trained like a circus horse, meaning that I have gathered a large repertoire of what people normally say and do in everyday situations, and I know roughly when to say/do what, but pretty often, the timing is off just a split second, and then these awkward collisions happen.

They happen most frequently with hollow phrases, and sometimes I manage to finish a complete sentence at the same time as the person I’m talking to (like „Have a nice weekend“). How the **** do I know who's the one to say it, and in which fraction of a second exactly? Sometimes it happens several times in a row (during a short interaction), which is both creepy and embarrassing.

I know it’s my fault, because other people don’t experience this all the time. In an almost comical way, it feels like I’m an amateurishly designed robot from the 90s, and I wish I could understand how other people conversate so effortlessly, it’s like a dance. I’m interested in how „normal“ people can hurl around these quick, empty phrases all the time without stumbling and bumping into each other like that.

Any thoughts?

Hi there. What you are experiencing sounds very familiar. When it comes to timing, I've found that if I anticipate things too much, I get a little jumpy on the trigger and say or do things too early, as you have done. I've had to train myself to sloowwwww myself down in general, and leave a small delay (I go with a 3 count) to let people do their thing first if they're going to, and then follow up after them, based on what they do - or if they don't do anything, I'll say my thing, and let them follow up. Then move on, in either case.

FWIW, we're all (humans in general) a bunch of trained monkeys, it's just that some people make better dancing monkeys than others. Some monkeys just do as they've seen, and it works. They don't have some deep understanding of their actions, or a mastery of behavioral nuances. Monkey copy dance. That's it. Also, more people are faking it than you probably realize, and it only looks effortless from the outside cos they're effective at it. Even NT individuals have insecurities, have masks and fake personas constructed in order to fit in. Often times, the reason they do all fit in so well, is cos they're all faking it, just to fit in together. They know being different can be scary, so they intentionally conform to blend in to their herd. Even in NT circles there are socially awkward people. They're typically referred to as "dorks", and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Some people find it charming and endearing.

Anywho, sometimes the only reason they're so good at their little dance is cos they've been doing the exact same dance with the exact same type of people for so long, they know all the moves by habit and reflex. That's why people usually stay in and with their element, familiar people and places. They already know those particular sets of "rules" from already having done it over and over and over. They already made their mistakes and ironed out their routines long ago. You just get to see the final result w/o seeing all the practice and mistakes that went into it. I can assure you though, an unexpected move, or taking them out of their element, can completely derail them.

Think of it this way. A football fan fits in perfectly at a football game, or around other football fans. They would not *necessarily* fit in at an opera house, or a lecture on particle physics. Equally so, a soprano soloist or a quantum physicist might feel equally out of place at a football game. It's all about who you are, where you are, and who you're around. People tend to not handle difference well.

Hope that makes sense.

I know exactly what you mean, I have the same bad timing for interactions, like there is a lag of a second or two in my brain compared to everyone else's. This happens when trying to talk, in processing expressions, while walking around people - just basically anything to do with other people feels like I'm out of sync somehow and ends up being awkward. To watch other people interact is amazing, they do it with a speed, complexity, and fluidity that I could never hope to match.

My timing is now pretty good after sticking with it for about ten years. It was awful ten years ago.