Most of the difficulty is not the no, it is the amount of explaining people attach to it, which invites negotiation. Phrasings that hold up, from having got this wrong for years. "I can't take that on this week."…
Someone says their name, I say mine, and by the time we are two sentences in it has completely gone. Not fuzzy, gone, as though I never heard it. This happens even when I care. At a work event last month I met six…
At work socials I can talk to anybody for an hour if it is just the two of us. Put me in a circle of five and I have nothing: by the time I have a thought worth saying the subject has changed, and if I do start talking…
Left after work drinks at half seven having genuinely enjoyed it, and then sat in the car for ten minutes unable to face driving. Needed about two hours of silence at home before I felt like myself. This is not anxiety…
Different people, months apart, so I am taking it seriously. My internal experience is that I get excited and I am agreeing with them, or I have thought of the thing they are about to say and I want them to know I got…
34, moved city eight months ago, and I know almost nobody here. The two places I am regularly around the same people are a climbing gym and a dog park, and both feel like places where saying anything could easily be…
Happens at work socials and one to one both. I ask a question, they answer, I ask another one, and after three or four rounds I can feel it turning into an interview and then it dies. I am not shy exactly, I can start…
I am willing to put real work into this and I have the reps available: a barista every morning, colleagues at lunch, a gym desk, neighbours. What I do not have is any idea what I am supposed to be practising, because…
Five months into a new city, no friends here yet, two free evenings a week and most weekends. Introvert, and I am after one or two people I could call rather than a big circle. There is a board game night every Tuesday…
Every single time, I get stuck with one person for 25 minutes and then the event is over and I have spoken to nobody else. Last week it was a supplier telling me about his boat. Nice man, no complaints, but I went…