Using overthinking as a tool in conversation
Hello and welcome to me systemising social behavior instead of sleeping.
OK, so this is possibly a follow up on crushes and what a person who doesn't know what they are doing might do.
However I hope to show a new perspective on why socialising seems difficult or daunting. More specifically for me but the idea should follow through to you and others.
So what happens when we overthink? I am not asking this on any low level, rather I want to understand why and how we overthink.
We overthink when, well I guess we are scared. Particularly in the context of a social setting. Personally, I tend to overthink when I am afraid of embarrassing myself in front of this person.
My fear of this likely stems from who that person is to me; someone I am not close enough to so that they do not care about a mistake due to knowing me as a person. But one who I am still too close to so that we are strangers.
At least they feel that way in my mind. They feel like they will judge me for my actions instead of my person.
Which isn't anything on them. I would like to stress the I feel part of "I feel they judge me by my actions instead of my person".
Now how do we fix that?ok We could go about this by getting closer to them and letting them know me as my person instead of my actions. I would like to focus on that here.
Socialising is hard
Let's systemise this.
I present you with a problem. You are me, and you do not know how to socialise with people you are not close with.
And then you end up in silence. It seems that the other person is quiet and staring into the void, thinking.
BUT, hold on, are you too? No? You don't know? I do not either, but it is worth considering this.
With many problems that I get stuck on, let's look at this from another perspective.
Let's pretend that you are them, or better yet, they are you. So, you are in an awkward silence with a clone of yourself. What are you thinking? What is going on in your mind?
Personally, chances are I do not like the awkward silence but now I feel pressured to say something, but I fear saying something stupid.
And it seems they aren't saying anything either. Why? Well they are a clone of you. So why aren't you?
You are quiet because you fear embarrassing yourself, while under the pressure to say something. You fear this because, as discussed earlier, you believe they judge you by your actions, not your person. You believe this because you do not yet feel you know them enough for the average person to be comfortable around.
Well, what if they weren't the average person?
But also, let's just tackle the problem from the root. Let's know them well enough to feel comfortable around them ourselves.
But how do we get to know someone? Well, it seems we need some data to process, some information about them, stuff you get by socialising.
But we don't have any. Why not? Well I ask you why you are not giving them data to process? Under the hypothetical where they are you, they want the same thing. Now give it to them.
What is data
This data I was talking about. I made it up, I have never seen another person specify the summative of someones behavior, personality, vibe and approach to conversation as data. However I fail to see why this could not be treated as such.
The data is simply the stuff you see when people are people: body language and vocabulary, and their engagement in what they are saying. It is stuff you only see when people actually socialise.
You do not get nearly as much, if any, data from an awkward silence or your own fear of embarrassment as you do from a conversation.
It is this data that people use to determine who you are as a person.
Give it to people.
And hope they give it back.