Monday 26 August 2013

Lacking communication skills

I am constantly frustrated by my own communication skills. I understand that it is important to express ideas in a way that other people can understand them. That's very clear. My problem is that my mental model of all other humans in existence seems to be flawed. Not just a little bit off-centre or sometimes too presumptuous about shared knowledge. I mean I say a sentence, then spend ten minutes trying to explain myself. Or we just drop it and move on with dismissive hands waving in my face. "You don't talk right. Stop it and let the humans have a go." I am very familiar with the furrowed brow of all my acquaintances, friends and family.

What can I do about this? I'm already very slow to speak. I feel like if I speak sooner, before my thoughts have had a chance to ramble off topic, I'll be even less coherent. My words will become alien sounds bearing no resemblance to your earth languages at all. If I take longer, I'll appear fully autistic, responding to questions long after the conversation has moved on.

My usual response is to sit completely silent, avoiding the embarassment of speaking and being misunderstood and replacing it with the mild shame of being the only one who can't contribute to group discussions.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Every idea seems to take too many words to express.
PPS - And too much background info to establish.

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