How can you apply "think before you speak" if it isn't feasible to pause for 15 seconds between every sentence you say mid conversation????
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The smartest people I've ever met pause for at least five seconds before answering direct questions. Some for much longer. There's a Supreme Court justice who I'm told pauses for like 25 seconds or more anytime she's asked a question.
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like most things, conversation skill is mainly not a conscious thing. any skill a human is reasonably good at is done mostly by unconscious parts of brain, under only loose direction from your conscious mind. most things happen too quickly for deliberate conscious reasoning, which is rather slow. you can't expect to create a set of rules to run through in your head while you converse. it is more like training a neural net, or an llm or something. you give it feedback, like when you make someone angry, you tell it 'don't do that' (ideally just in the form of feeling bad) and eventually it learns. but it takes time.
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Be less negative, don't talk behind people's backs, leave coworker 4 alone
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If your chats are as innocent as the running topic then don't mind their issues. Nobody can know what someone's state is that makes them sensitive to random triggering.
As for what others said about bullshitting about someone behind their back or being overall negative, you can work on those.
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Think further before, don't wait for the middle of a conversion. Run potential future conversations through in your mind before you even see these coworkers and decide in advance how you'll respond to various topics so you don't have to do it in the moment.
You can do this in front of a mirror to practice the body language you want to project, as well.
By chance, are you located in the Midwest? Or neurodivergent? Because Midwesterners really aren't comfortable with most kinds of explicit negative emotional displays, and there are very specific ways to indicate negative emotions appropriately. And IME most NTs are distressed by the way NDs tend to express anxiety.
If I could sum up all of what I've said into one sentence, it'd be: Stop displaying anxiety to your coworkers.
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Most people say ummm … uuuh … between words because they were too quick to answer and need to think. It’s a fine line though, which you need to develop over time for yourself. My boss makes very long pauses before he answers and looks kinda frozen while he thinks, it’s a bit confusing but I appreciate that he cares about what we are talking about.
Look up Charisma On Demand on Youtube, it might have some interesting topics for you. Just don’t try to forcefully apply everything. Everyone is a different character with their own quirks and that’s good.
The saying „Think before you speak“ I believe is not meant for during conversations specifically but for when you give your opinion on something and it’s based more on emotion than facts.
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I always say that thinking before speaking is a bit like wiping before going number two.
Maybe that's why I don't have any friends.
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On thinking before you speak, it means this: if something is said that makes you want to respond right away, when you sense a physical reaction (of hurt, anger, sadness or wanting retribution), or you are in a situation where what you say matters a lot (an interview, a meeting with higher-ups in a company etc.), it's a mental cue for you to block immediate responses which can cause you to run your mouth in ways you later regret. Instead, you actively make an effort to listen more and consider your situation before responding. So it's not a 15 second pause after each sentence, but a 15 seconds you take while the other person is going on about whatever before you inject yourself into a conversation or before you make your point when it's your turn.
On interacting with your coworkers, they're not your therapists, so you can talk about what's new and the fortunate and unfortunate things that happen to you over the course of a week, but the basic idea is to avoid making your problems their problems when you do.
I'm of a more positive nature but I love to info-dump on my coworkers about my favourite topics. I try to offset that by involving them and asking their opinion, showing them cool things, and then taking the turn to let them discuss what their thoughts are and follow up with that. And I try to get a sense if they aren't interested in talking at a particular moment or are losing interest in the middle of a conversation. EQ skills are about taking that pulse.
If you need a place to start: The idea is give and take, and it should be in relatively equal amounts. Would you be able to tell me what has been on the minds lately of Coworkers 1-3? Or have you spent most of the conversation about yourself and your issues? (#4 doesn't sound interested much in sharing their personal life, so you don't have to probe them on it).
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You don't need to give explicit details of your coworkers' lives, but from your writing it really seemed to me that you were more interested in mechanically optimizing conversation. This isn't necessarily a bad perspective, but people already do that organically by understanding each other more and learning their history. The route of good conversation follows logically from there through empathy.
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Just don't say anything I wouldn't say. I wouldn't care about leaving large gaps between subjects if you need to think beforehand, because it'll take the focus away from the subject and onto "being in your own head". If the pausing is after literally every sentence then it might be that the conversation just naturally isn't going anywhere. (E.g. the other person doesn't want to talk, there's no conversational threads, no more information needs to be added, its just a statement that needs no reply.) But if its like this all the time everyday with everyone then maybe speak to a speech therapist (or someone who can help with speech impediments, or could get a referal from your doctor). Coworker 4 is an example of not letting they're personal and professional lives intermix. I think that talking to your coworkers about your struggles all the time is emotionally draining even if you didn't mean to, put yourself in their shoes, if someone would talk about their problems repeatedly to you, wouldn't you get tired eventually? Not sure about coworker 3 asking "are you OK" because I don't know their vibe from the post, it could be everything from: the standard "hello" "hi" interaction to "you seem like you want to talk" (but I lack context to understand if its a positive or negative vibe.)
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Me: What??? Ok sure, Coworker 2
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Small talk with coworker 1 doesn't work at all because they will randomly randomly act condescending to you when you make a joke or say something that doesn't land exactly with them.
...so are you coworker 1? Lol
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I once had a boss like this and when he finally said something it was always "it depends". I often wanted him to give a simple, quick, direct answer but I eventually realized things were more complicated than that. It reminded me of the Tolkien quote: "Go not to the Elves for counsel for they will answer both no and yes."
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You're thinking too much already. They might not even be reacting negatively to what you're saying but you're so insecure that you read into stuff that isn't your fault. Or maybe you're going too deep for work place conversations. Like talking about personal stuff that is not what most people wanna here. Honestly, based on what you posted, you are a weird guy that has weird thinking. It's okay, no judgemental because I am too. But what I've found works with people is too just fit in with them. Don't air your dirty laundry out too them and just talk about mainstream stuff. If it's something you think might be what the average person isn't into, just don't talk about it.
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Learn to respect yourself and stop caring what others think. You're there to work. Get shit done, quit worrying about other people's feelings.
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You tried therapy and that's good the problem is trying to find a GOOD therapist is very difficult.MOST of them shouldn't be a therapist they can only regurgitate what they were told in class. They can't think outside of the box and think critically.
I respect the fact that you are trying to find an answer to solve your problem.
You even gave examples of different coworker situations.
Sadly I don't have an answer for you. The only thing I can say is don't give up.
Maybe sit down with one of them one on one outside of work. Mention what happened earlier and that you noticed a serious change in their body language and apologize then say you want to do better. Then ask for their input on what you did wrong. Maybe they can help.
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I had considered coworker 3 to be my friend a bit tbh. But that is not supposed to be the case, right? We are not supposed to be friends or anything. I am supposed to find friends elsewhere and not think of them that way, right?
I can't tell if this is sarcastic or genuine.
If it's genuine: congrats on finding a new friend. Don't cut them off because an internet rando said something.
If it's sarcastic: it's inappropriate to react to advice that you solicited in that manner.
Coworker 2: Yeah, running a 10 minute mile is easy. Anyone can do it. ...
If someone is full of shit at work, I'd just nod and smile. Unless there's something to be gained by calling them out, I'd just note that they are uninformed on that topic and move on.
If people want to discuss serious topics with me then I'm just not supposed to contribute, right??
Again, I'm not sure if this is sarcastic or genuine. The two question marks, and the "right" make me think it's sarcastic, but I could be wrong.
Either way: talk about what you want. However, if you want to keep things civil with your coworkers, it's easier if you avoid divisive topics.
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Keep conversation away from your beliefs until you know where the other person stands.
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Ask questions. People like talking about themselves, so that's an easy way to keep things moving.
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Make noncommittal statements.
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Well yyeah so I kind of wrote the post in a detached manner because I am trying to mechanically optimize conversation. Doing things organically doesn't work out for me even though my heart is in the right place and I just want to get along with people and for us to be happy.
I'm 30. People telling me that things will work out once you get to know people better do not at all understand that I have spent many many years doing this and yet I still fail horribly multiple times per week. I'm not some teen with a still developing brain. This is the way I am and I want to figure out how to improve and be more correct in my interactions. If it hasn't organically happened in 30 years, it's not going to organically happen now.
I have just never been skilled in that manner. So I would like to try to break it down into a more logical way where I could actually work on it. All too often I get frustrated that no one has written a guidebook on every facet of human interaction.
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They just get upset with me if I do that unfortunately. I'm never supposed to talk to them about things when I make them upset.
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Oh God...how can I possibly hope to think of every single permutation of conversation??? It sounds like I would be thinking about conversations indefinitely if I did that. Any tips???
No, I am not in the Midwest. I did have a therapist ask me once if I was neurodivergent and I said no. I don't think I fall in line with anything like autism or anything like that. I do struggle with human interaction but everything else about me seems pretty "neurotypical". Even in conversation, I actually am able to carry on normally and understand a lot of social cues, I think. I struggle a bit with anxiety and told someone that I struggle sometimes to order food at places because of that. That person told me "that's weird because you seem totally normal" in a non sarcastic way. It made me feel good actually lol and like I'm very normal passing haha.
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I can't tell if this is sarcastic or genuine.
I apologize if anything came off as sarcastic! I am being very serious in my questions. I don't really understand how any of this works. I have been reading the replies but it's tricky to respond to them all.
With the friend thing, there are a lot of philosophies people have about work. Some people believe I shouldn't speak and should only work all day, while others seem to prefer to chat once in a while. For me, it's difficult for me to know the most correct way to act in terms of these two philosophies. It seems like a lot of peopl would like the former...that I should speak minimally and just do my work. I struggle with the former philosophy because you spend most of your waking hours working, so I would like to get some enjoyment out of it. But that is wrong, no?
And like the person who I had considered to be a friend. They have a busy life outside of work so it's wrong to bother them, correct?
The person who I had considered to be a friend sometimes likes to talk about serious topics. But I am not really sure what to do when that comes up because I at times give the wrong answers. I know a lot about their beliefs. We have different ones and usually that's perfectly ok argue or anything.
If someone is full of shit at work, I'd just nod and smile. Unless there's something to be gained by calling them out, I'd just note that they are uninformed on that topic and move on.
They weren't actually full of shit...they are just super fit and don't realize that they are a bit outside the norm.
So one of the things I've noticed is that I slipped up like this because it was in the middle of a flowing conversation. I didn't stop to realize that I was about to say the wrong thing because we were having a lot of back and forth lighthearted chatting. That's why I've brought up this topic to begin with tbh. Of I am not in a flowing conversation, it's easier for me to pause and think before a response. When I am in a conversation I fuck up. I don't know anyone who pauses between each sentence even utilizing this "think before you speak" attitude, so I'd like to find out how to implement it in a better way. Idk.
I do appreciate your time.
