How to tell whether a conversation has ended or not?

Page 1 of 1 [ 10 posts ] 

somebody300
Blue Jay
Blue Jay

User avatar

Joined: 8 May 2016
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Posts: 93
Location: France

24 Jul 2016, 12:18 pm

Let's say I'm participating in an e-mail conversation with someone. When they acknowledge what I said, and say that they're looking forward to meeting me in person again to discuss about the topic in more detail, how am I supposed to respond? Am I supposed to respond at all? Or is the conversation considered to having ended?

And in general, at what point can an e-mail conversation be considered as having ended? When is one supposed to stop responding?



alpacka
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 24 Apr 2016
Gender: Female
Posts: 458

25 Jul 2016, 4:26 am

If someone says they look forward to meet you in person then I would suggest you to make a date to meet.

If its just a e-mail conversation then you can look for questions. If the person stop asking you questions then you dont have to respond.
Also if a conversation dies out it maybe can be you that didnt ask any questions either.
Ppl in general are bad at asking things and then conversations dies out very quickly.


_________________
Beauty is fleeting, but a rent-controlled apartment overlooking the city is forever


Summer_Twilight
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 13 Sep 2011
Age: 43
Gender: Female
Posts: 5,225

28 Jul 2016, 10:10 am

It will end if
1. They stop talking about subject
2. If there is nothing else to say they will either smile at you or say very little
3. They will also look at their phone or turn to do something else
4. If it's online they will stop talking or responding to you
5. Also being more direct "Yeah I think we are done here" or "End of discussion" or "I'm done."



BirdInFlight
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Jun 2013
Age: 62
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,501
Location: If not here, then where?

29 Jul 2016, 5:52 am

I've always loved and laughed a lot at the "bit" that Ellen Degeneres used to do in her stand-up routine, where she noticed that people winding up a conversation seem to go ".....anyway......." She even made it her sign-off logo at the end of her show. It's so true, people seem to use filler words like "....anyway...." "so....yeah....." to signal that the chat is coming to an natural ending place.

That's just face to face encounters, for e-mails and such, things already mentioned are good pointers.



Sophia_83
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

Joined: 7 Aug 2016
Gender: Female
Posts: 7
Location: Vienna

07 Aug 2016, 3:23 pm

Hello,
I can not say anything about Email conversations, but about real life. I often find myself in situations, where I talk to a person not very close to me. I never know when the conversation is over and sometimes I put an end to it and go away. But I feel unfriendly then. :(
I don't know whether I was wrong or right. Last week I met my assistant from the national autistic society in the headquarters, where I was for one- on one therapy.
When I went down to leave the house, I met her at the office door. It was a kind of awkward situation. I didn't know how long I should talk and when the conversation should be over politely.
I don't feel very bad about this, because she is my personal assistant. And she knows about my Asperger's. So she knows that I don't have a clue about social communication, how neurotypical people like to have it.

I'm afraid I cannot help you. I don't know a better way myself.

Regards, Sophia.



Korvan
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

User avatar

Joined: 24 Jul 2016
Gender: Female
Posts: 28
Location: The Abyss

07 Aug 2016, 6:03 pm

I struggle with understanding how a conversation ends too. I can usually pick up online if someone sends like a smiley face or actually says the conversation has ended that the conversation has come to an end - but with telephones/phones in general or knowing if someone is getting bored of ready to leave a table can also be hard to pick up.



nurseangela
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Nov 2014
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,017
Location: Kansas

07 Aug 2016, 6:30 pm

Me and one of my Aspie friends email a lot and I never knew when the conversation was over - he would just stop talking. So I said it would really help me if one of us says something that let's the other one know that the conversation is over at that time. Now we say bye and that we are leaving. That helps me a lot because I'm used to NT's talking non-stop while some of my Aspie friends needed time to think about what they wanted to say.


_________________
Me grumpy?
I'm happiness challenged.

Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 83 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 153 of 200 You are very likely neurotypical
Darn, I flunked.


League_Girl
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 27,254
Location: Pacific Northwest

07 Aug 2016, 7:16 pm

For me if someone has stopped responding to you, it's safe to assume they are done talking to you. If they ignore at least two of your emails, assume they are ignoring you and they are done talking to you. If they are still interested in talking to you, they will respond or send you another message. That way you won't be harassing them.


If someone ignores a subject you are asking them, assume they don't want to talk about it. If they stop responding to what you are talking about and they only talk about other things, it means they are done with that topic.

As for when to stop responding, until you decide you are done talking or have nothing else to say to them. Just as long as you keep responding, the other person is going to think you still want to talk.


_________________
Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.

Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.


League_Girl
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 27,254
Location: Pacific Northwest

07 Aug 2016, 7:29 pm

Summer_Twilight wrote:
5. Also being more direct "Yeah I think we are done here" or "End of discussion" or "I'm done."



I don't think most people will be that direct, instead they will do something like this: they will "get busy" and then they slowly withdraw by responding less and less and doing shorter and shorter replies and taking longer to respond and then not at all as a way to be polite so they won't hurt your feelings. I think this is useful to do to people who are very sensitive to rejection or have social anxiety. The last thing you wanna do is make them worry and give them low self esteem and making them think there is something wrong with them and their social skills or making them withdraw from people even more because you had proven to them what they believe about themselves is true.

I have had some people "get busy" on me but I always think they were just being polite. I have had many others just quit coming online and others not respond anymore. Unless they quit being active on the forum, then I do believe they got busy for real than just being polite.


_________________
Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.

Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.


DancingCorpse
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 12 Dec 2015
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,532

08 Aug 2016, 4:03 pm

I'm terrible with this, I'll email back my support workers picking out stuff from the email they sent before they sent the ''I'll see you then'' email as I feel rude or that I haven't made enough conversation lol. A conversation also never ends with me physically either, I'll just keep blabbing on if it's something I find worth discussing and people are like why are you talking about that again, we were talking about THIS.