Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everyone, it's me with a question again.
I find professional relationships very hard. The main reason is because I feel that they seem so fake to me.
Small talks? People who don't really know me or care about how I feel nor have time to hear my real answer still ask me "how are you today?", "How was your weekend?".
Lunches and team activities?. People whom I don't know but I can't actually get to know or ask personal questions because we are just colleagues and not friends. Still it's expected to find something to talk about for more than an hour?!. Most topics in that setting don't interest me and seem superficial.
Team work? Ok, that one is easier because we actually talk about work and it fits our relationship description "colleagues" and it doesn't seem like a superficial talk, but they confuse me at times when they change their opinions about the same thing or it comes across as if they want to push their views and opinions over others. I become very unmotivated to share my view because I know that most probably eventually it won't be applied anyway and it's just waste of my power and energy.
Sometimes I say things that cause their face expressions to suddenly dramatically change. I spend hours trying to figure out where the misunderstanding was. In one occasion they were talking about an awful accident and I found something about it funny and I started laughing and everyone looked at me as if I'm a psychopath. I'm actually hypersensitive and have overwhelming high empathy.
The style of talking as using formal sentences and professional words to sound smart and so on. Dressing in an office suitable manner which is so damn superficial because it serves no real cause other than sounding and looking in a certain way even if it doesn't reflect your true self in anyway. I can't present myself as a professional. I can present myself as Ree...
How do you manage professional relationships? Any tips on how you make it true to yourself and not exhausting while thriving in professional relationships?
Over the years I've learned to fake it too. Well not fake exactly. I've just learned that they are like cats and small talk is like giving them a bit of chicken, back scratches etc. to make them more amenable. They don't care if you are not interested. They just want you to do it. If you really aren't interested, just work out the responses they're expecting. It takes a while and doesn't feel good at all, which is why I think of them as cats.
In the past I think I said things that got me the reputation of being 'weird', 'mad, but a nice mad', or even 'a daft cow' so I keep them all at arms length. My job is to get the work done. But to get the money there are some weird behaviors you have to take part in to make them feel better.
Welcome back Allfunk....I'd missed u popping up.
HI Number!
I try to. Mostly on Fridays. How are you?
Prolific ! Not too bad, I think. Busy - very busy - not always focused on the right things at the right times....talking of which........laters.....