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Formality

Deleted User

I realised only relatively recently that I interact rather formally with people I don’t know well.

As I’ve said on here before, I need time to build a mental model of other people before I can be comfortable interacting with them. In the meantime I must come across as very stiff, because I’m being incredibly careful not to overstep any boundaries or make any assumptions.

But this must be one of the things that hampers my efforts to make friends. How can other people be comfortable around someone who is stiff and formal? Nevermind flirting!

Do any of you do this?

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  • Deleted User said:
    I’m being incredibly careful not to overstep any boundaries or make any assumptions.

    It takes a lot of practice to find this to be automatic.

    When I started the part of my career when I was providing deskside support in the big trading banks I had to get over that weirdness phase and script / mask a way to seem normal in order to avoid making some of the people think I was either a weirdo or mocking them.

    Many, many years of doing this gave me ample practice with it and I eventually became a specialist in defusing angry customers, helping people who were freaking out about crashed systems and guiding clueless execs into avoiding decisions that would cause widespread unhappiness if implemented.

    The point is - so long as you are able and willing, keep going up against the thing that you want to learn to do and don't back down. Where you meet with failure then disect the situation, work out what went wrong and formulate a strategy for the next time.

    I have a habit of facing down what scares me which is probably why I did that approach rather than try to hide in the shadows in IT.

    If you have a very low energy reserve then this approach may not work for you.

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  • Deleted User said:
    I’m being incredibly careful not to overstep any boundaries or make any assumptions.

    It takes a lot of practice to find this to be automatic.

    When I started the part of my career when I was providing deskside support in the big trading banks I had to get over that weirdness phase and script / mask a way to seem normal in order to avoid making some of the people think I was either a weirdo or mocking them.

    Many, many years of doing this gave me ample practice with it and I eventually became a specialist in defusing angry customers, helping people who were freaking out about crashed systems and guiding clueless execs into avoiding decisions that would cause widespread unhappiness if implemented.

    The point is - so long as you are able and willing, keep going up against the thing that you want to learn to do and don't back down. Where you meet with failure then disect the situation, work out what went wrong and formulate a strategy for the next time.

    I have a habit of facing down what scares me which is probably why I did that approach rather than try to hide in the shadows in IT.

    If you have a very low energy reserve then this approach may not work for you.

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