# Why am I such a poor communicator? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 5, 2009, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-such-a-poor-communicator/479887 "2009-01-05T01:52:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![greatshakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/58956e/32.png) [@greatshakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greatshakes)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-such-a-poor-communicator/479887/41 "2009-01-08T03:38:07Z")
If I understood you correctly, the answer to your question is a black, 42 long, pinstripe, with vents and no fly. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-such-a-poor-communicator/479887/42 "2009-01-08T11:36:23Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > It’s as much a cultural style as poor communication. > > There are plenty of cultures (Irish, American Southern, etc.) where storytelling is deeply ingrained into society. Interestingly, both people I mentioned there are Irish. However, I learned to my cost when I first moved to Dublin, that the question “How’s it goin’?” Should be answered with either “Not too bad” or “Never better!” and not an actual answer about how you’re ill or tired or bored or poor or something, because that pisses people off and makes them feel uncomfortable. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-such-a-poor-communicator/479887/43 "2009-01-08T12:20:22Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > You have just described my husband’s method of communication. He can’t even handle simple questions like, ‘‘What time will you be there?’’ > > ‘‘Well, I usually wake up around 8am, but often I sleep through my alarm. It will take me between 15-20 minutes to shower and maybe 5 or 10 minutes to eat breakfast… [listener’s eyes glazing over]… so overall, assuming there’s no traffic, I’m going to estimate sometime between 10:35 and 10:39.’’ > > Oh my god. **JUST SAY 10:45!!!** \* > > If he mentioned penguins I might be more forgiving. Those little fellas are cute. > > To the OP, it sounds like other people have a listening problem, not that you have a communication problem. Though I don’t completely understand your second example. > [@panache45](#): > > My ex would have answered: “Well let’s see, I’m feeling like you’re expecting me to answer a precise time, without any knowledge of the immediate circumstances. And if I’m dealing with some sort of emotional distraction at the time, there’s no way to tell how that might impact my arrival. But if my mood is relatively free of turbulence, and my consciousness has at least a semblance of clarity . . .” > > This is just one reason why he is my “ex.” I’m both of these, combined. I have my reasons: 1. I’m a very, very interpersonal learner and thinker. I’m really, really fast at figuring things out… but only if I have someone to talk to, and it can’t be myself. I’ve failed entire tests before and then when I went to the instructor to review I’d go through the entire test (without studying beforehand) and 100% it without them speaking up, and have them look at e and basically say “well how the fuck did you manage to fail that? You obviously understand it.” The mere fact of having someone there helps me commit things to memory better, this, unfortunately, also applies to small things. It’s not that I’m a really, really detail oriented person, when thinking to myself I do “big picture” stuff. The problem is I forget those things, the only way I can remember is to put “flags” on a concrete conversation by making it unique and having enough long phrases that I can hope to recall PART of the conversation and walk myself through to what I’m supposed to remember from there. So I’ll go through the whole rigmarole of explaining my day up to arriving at 10:35, but that’s only because it’s the only way I’ll EVER remember to be at \ at 10:45. 2. I have social anxiety disorder and I’m really, really, REALLY afraid of offending people. Because of this I try to explain every single thing that could hinder me (traffic etc) so they’re not mad at me when I’m late or something (I FREAK OUT if I’m less than 5 minutes EARLY because I’m afraid their clock is 10 minutes fast). I qualify everything to the extreme because I pretty much have panic attacks when I think about all the things that could go wrong and need an outside body to either say “I don’t think that’ll happen.” Or at least “sign off” that they know the possible variables so I can worry less and say “I was afraid this would happen \.” 3. I don’t trust myself. The reason I go through all the variables and my entire routine is that I hope someone will point out a flaw in my thought process and correct me. I’m always afraid I’m going to forget something that throws everyone’s schedule off and hinders everything (see 2). By going through everything I hope someone can say “wait, that’s not right, \ is at least 20 minutes away from here.” And then I can readjust. Like I said I have SAD and I’m an interpersonal learner, doesn’t mix well. I don’t have many conversations and try to get all the knowledge I can out of one. It’s basically the way I ask questions (like when most people say "… right?), I have a conversation explaining my thought process, if no one corrects me I assume I’m right. See, I hadn’t done anything with anyone outside of school since 7th grade until a few months ago, so my entire conversation structure is sort of based on a combination of school and message boards, as such I have conversations as if I’m learning physics or something. In middle school I asked too many questions so I found clever ways of asking questions without asking them, as well as being able to ask as many questions as possible in a single dialogue exchange/conversation, and it sort of carried into my actual conversation style because I don’t really know social interaction outside of school. Obviously these points don’t hold true for everyone (or most people), but I hope I at least shed some light on people who do this. And I probably forgot something, if I was unclear, just say so… it’s sort of 5:30 AM and I haven’t slept yet so I’m in ramble mode. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-such-a-poor-communicator/479887/44 "2009-01-08T14:12:26Z")
**Jragon** , you have used the word “disorder” for your communications characteristics. Do you suppose that the people being complained about in this thread are all subject to a disorder of some kind? ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-such-a-poor-communicator/479887/45 "2009-01-09T07:19:14Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > **Jragon** , you have used the word “disorder” for your communications characteristics. Do you suppose that the people being complained about in this thread are all subject to a disorder of some kind? Maybe, maybe not. I’m going with “probably not.” My Social Anxiety Disorder contributes to the problem (I hate starting conversations, and I’m afraid of offending people), but it’s nowhere near the be-all end-all of “spell-everything-out-itis.” They COULD have something like that contributing, certainly, but I think most people who do it just always did it that way and no one really called them on it, which is probably the MAIN factor of mine as well (not having much social interaction and mostly talking in an academic setting what I was doing probably sounded “natural”). In short: they could, but even if they did, it’s a contributing factor, not the entire reason. ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-such-a-poor-communicator/479887/46 "2009-01-09T12:01:26Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > One thing I’ve noticed in life is that people rarely take things the way you actually mean them. It seems they’re always looking for some sort of angle – an insult; a disingenuousness; an artificality; to assess the degree to which you know what you’re talking about; etc. – and it can seem that if there’s any possible way to take what you say the wrong way, they will. Personally speaking you have just made me have a “DOH” moment. I have been doing that the last 2 days. Thank you 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-such-a-poor-communicator/479887.md?page=2)