I recently had a long conversation with a new coworker that’s leaving me puzzled, and not in a good way. We’d had a few short, almost always pleasant - and getting increasingly friendly and fun - chats before but this was our first lengthy exchange.
Sticking to the facts, it was really positive : we talked for a very long time with none of the akward pauses that are common when you don’t know someone well, my coworker laughed at my silly quips, didn’t check a couple of incoming sms and only expressed disapproval of something I said once, mildly and with a smile. Yet, as soon as it ended, I was overcome with the feeling that I had come across as much less qualified and interesting than my (highly qualified) colleague may have been led to believe and haven’t been able to shake the feeling that it was an utter failure.
This is something that I’ve experienced so often. I’ve always had a hard time determining whtether my interactions with other people are negative, neutral or positive. I’ve upset some people by saying things that I, wrongly, considered mild and I’ve blown little things out of proportions by seeing them as better, or worse, than they really turned out to be.
If you’ve experienced this “so often”, it is most likely about you. Your gut feelings in your case aren’t about the present, but about beliefs you have about yourself and others which you bring to present interactions whether they are applicable or not.
Also sounds like you have unusual trouble assessing others’ emotions.
That particular gut feeling sounds like a useless slice of self-doubt, so probably shouldn’t be taken heed of. In a personal/relationship setting I can see there being so many subjective factors that listening to intuitive gut feelings might be helpful. But in a work setting - where one should be able to get a reasonable idea of your, and colleagues’, knowledge and expertise, you should be able to find an evidence-based level of confidence in yourself, gut be damned.
One of the facts that I forgot to mention is giving me pause, though.
I haven’t been able to have another conversation with said coworker since then. Knocked on the door a couple of times but got no answer. Trying to see it rationally, it seems unlikely that someone wouldn’t open the door in a work setting, so there’s probably a very mundane explanation. Anyway, it’s better to leave it at that for the moment. I’m going to be pretty busy in the coming weeks anyway.
I don’t trust either and really don’t care. It is often hard enough to be certain what my true feelings are in every circumstance, let alone interpreting my feelings about how I subjectively evaluate someone else’s feelings in an interaction.
It’s been my experience that how others perceive me is impossible to guess. I am always surprised by the way other people will twist what I’ve said or done to fit some preconceived notion of who I am, or of how “people like me” behave.
In the end I concluded to mostly pay it no mind. I’m pretty much going to do what I think is right in any given situation. I’m going to talk about what I find interesting, and hope others have some input. And if they don’t like me, I just hope it’s for who I actually am, rather than some person they’ve made up for me to be.
When people actually talk to me about it, I’m all in. I’m willing to consider their opinion about how I should approach a given situation,or listen to their reasons for thinking a certain way. But if they choose not to discus it with me, there’s no way to guess or to address any misunderstanding. When you get into serious dysfunction is when one person vents to another, and this third person tries to tell you what so-and-so thinks. Never engage in that, it’s toxic.
What other people think of me is none of my business, unless they choose to discuss it with me.
Work conversations are especially difficult to analyze. I suspect most people are kind of on autopilot and don’t really care what is said. People gunning for promotion will often be extra talkative with everyone. Your scenario is difficult to assess with the limited info. I would stop attempting to talk to them, and see if they attempt to talk to me first.
If the coworker was “gunning for promotion”, I’d be way down on the list of persons you want to flatter as I have zero influence on that sort of things, a fact which is easy to assess quickly :D. Plus, we don’t even work on the same projects.
As a matter of fact, none of our earlier, short chats were work-related. Coffee machine talk, but warmer. I started the latter conversation with work-related questions because I thought it’d be awkward otherwise, but we quickly moved on to personal stuff.
I tend to go by more of a long track record combining the two rather than short-term-basic-data so I went with the last choice. I am also willing to change my opinion/view over time as more data/conversations are added.
If you’re asking how I deal with things, I suspect that my entire framework is different from yours. When I talk with someone I don’t know well, the question running through my mind is not “Does he/she like me?” It’s “Do I like him/her?” And a big part of whether I like a person is how that person makes me feel. For instance, people who seem interested in steering a conversation in a certain direction, gloating about what they know, and don’t show much interest in me and what I like are people where (a) I don’t like them, and (b) I don’t particularly care what their opinion of me is. But if I can have a pleasant conversation with the other person, then my gut feeling is simply “I want to talk to this person more.” So I do.
But the underlying question in your OP seems to be “How do you think I ought to deal with this?”, and you also specifically say that you have a hard time determining whether your interactions with other people went well. So my advice to you would be this: In my interactions with people, and specifically with talking about other people behind their backs, I have found that for the most part, people like each other. I have also found that for the most part, people keep to themselves, not because they dislike other people, but simply because putting yourself out there and trying to make a friend is intimidating and puts you in an emotionally vulnerable position. It takes courage to do something as simple as initiate a friendly, not-work-related conversation with another person that extends beyond “Fine thanks, how are you.”
I don’t know this for certain, but I suspect that some of your feelings of “I don’t know how that went” are rooted in fear. If you can convince yourself that the other person did not like you, then you won’t have to put yourself out there anymore.
I will also say that there are times when I initially did not like a person, but when that person kept acting friendly towards me, I came around, because how can you not like a person who clearly seems to like you?
So my advice to you would be that if you’re uncertain what impression you’ve made, go back and try again.
I’m an awkward person. The first impression I make on folks is usually not at all how I wish them to see me. I’ve had multiple people tell me that they initially thought I have a super intense personality, which made me intimidating to them. But the reason they felt comfortable letting me know this is because I am actually not super intense. And when people make this discovery, it makes them laugh.
Now that I know I come across as intense and intimidating, I don’t internalize (too much) when my initial encounters with people seem awkward and stilted. I know they are reacting to just one aspect of me. And I also know that it won’t take too long for them to understand this. AND I also know that I don’t have to do a damn thing but just continue being me. I don’t have to keep talking to them to counteract any negative first impressions I may have made. I don’t have to apologize to them for any awkwardness. I don’t have to put on a front that doesn’t feel natural to me just so people will immediately like me. All I have do to is just give people some time to get to know me and it’s all good.
I also know I don’t come always across as brilliantly as I’d like to come across. But it’s the same thing as above. I don’t feel pressure to convince people I’m SUPER SMART right off the bat because I know eventually they’ll come to see that at the very least I have islands of intelligence. And if they don’t? It really doesn’t matter to me. I’ve managed to fool enough people that I feel sufficiently secure in the knowledge that I am smart enough.
It took me years to get to this point, though. I have had to learn how to talk to myself (mentally) to get through social confusion and worry. So you’ve got to start doing the same thing.
Just to be clear : I’m indeed rather shy and awkward but I’m no hermit either. Although I’d consider none of them as “friends”, I get along very well with almost all of my colleagues and have pleasant, not work-related talks with them daily.
But in this case, I felt it went a bit beyond that. The coworker in question definitely appreciated my sense of humour. This is something that doesn’t happen often, but when it does, sparks fly. Honestly, I didn’t think too much of this at first. But, little by little, I started noticing that our interactions were clearly fonder, and not from my initiative. All this led me to think that this was someone I could be friends with.
Incidentally, my coworker didn’t gloat at any point during our long conversation. But, through its course, I realized that we had very different backgrounds and achievements. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the seed of the problem may have been sown the first time we met. The supervisor who introduced us to each other somewhat… exaggerated the extent of my skills, while not saying much about my coworker’s. This may have led to a somewhat distorted picture for both of us, that was brutally rectified during our conversation, as I decided to be as honest as possible.
So, what do I take out of it ?
For the moment I’m just focusing on the good things. Remembering that I wasn’t the one who initiated the warmer interactions. And that morning when my coworker first laughed at my deadpan quips. Those were great feelings.
For the question: I trust my gut to alert me, but not to decide facts. My gut is just a nudge. It tells me to check. Plus, even then, I had to learn to filter out my own personal anxiety.
Your specific situation: I don’t even think being interesting is what most people are considering, and I doubt your abilities are relevant, either. In other words, I think the things you are worrying about aren’t really relevant, and so you don’t need to pay those worries any mind.
Note, I didn’t say “don’t worry.” That’s counterproductive. I’m saying don’t believe those worries.
Not all of this is applicable to me - I wouldn’t call myself a “high-achiever” for instance - but some stuff does ring true : “over-prepare, tinker and obsess over details”, “fear of failure”, “discounting praise”…
Luckily that’s not the sort of thing that would happen at The Dope!
Gut Reactions are emotional and are based on subtle, often unconscious cues. Unusually high levels of charm/alarm should be noted and examined because it’s not hard to manipulate how you appear to someone’s guts–you might be getting played. They are worth paying attention to, but should not be the sole basis of acceptance/rejection of a new acquaintance.
It should have occured to me before that there are probably people like you, who can choose among various possible friends. For me, I have to work very hard to have an admittedly pathetic social life. If I went into a mode like you, I would be a hermit. What is your secret. How do you get enough possible social contacts that you can choose among them?
Also, people talk about “gut” feelings. I read online (perhaps what I read was wrong) that the gut has neurons (I didn’t believe it, and still think I misunderstood). At any rate, I never feel anything in my gut. I do have an intuition, which I think may be what is meant. Do people really feel emotions in their gut? Could my social awkwardness be due to a “dumb” gut?
So would I, but I must admit that I find it very helpful to reframe the whole thing in terms of the part I bolded in The wind of my soul’s post. It’s a revealing shift of perspective.
