When I told my longtime friends about the case at Sushiro, their response was not what I expected. They didn’t ask questions or showed amazement. I feel like rather than disinterest, my storytelling and their personalities were the key determining factors. One of them was phlegmatic, the other was slow on the uptake and another heard the story already. To be fair, I was in a rush to get the story out as soon as possible like I just witnessed a murder. Instead of tailoring my story to their personalities, I treated it like a word vomit; I wasn’t sensitive to their pauses, microexpressions and didn’t fine-tune my responses accordingly.

The same happened when I was explaining it to Chat Lounge peps. I wanted to wait till I was done filling myself with food before talking about it. When I did, I was rushing through it without pausing at the appropriate places. Once again this ties back to telling people how to meet me. This is like how S keeps talking and the rest of us take the cue to not interrupt him. Likewise if I kept on talking, they wouldn’t know when to chime in. I suppose with more experience this will be less of an issue.

In yesterday’s cell group, I was describing my triumphant experience to the group; I was directing it to HM, she’s so happy for me and I could feel her enthusiasm! This got me thinking that maybe in a group conversation you should direct it to someone. The underlying fundamentals are the same as a one-to-one conversation except it should be made more generic for other people to participate. You should try to make it fun for everyone instead of getting bogged down by details. Of course, it’ll be different with a group of friends who already know each other for a long time. They’d have inside jokes etc.

Growing up I had to look at how Other People behave to learn what’s the “right” behaviour in a given situation. Even now sometimes I’m still not confident in my tactics - the timing of when to chime in, the art of initiating, planning where to go and what to do etc. I had a natural feel for it when I was playing Among Us with my colleagues.

I shouldn’t mistake their lack of asking questions as not listening or boredom. Many years ago, I remembered talking about how my mum’s shallow and often off a tangent reply bothered me with ZS. That made me feel insecure because my words seemed to carry no weight. I couldn’t feel genuine interest from her. However, I learnt that her disembodiment was a result of living in an environment where her feelings will never be reciprocated, where there wasn’t anyone to hold space for her. She’s the strongest person I know who is as resilient if not more than any man.

Another thing that comes up is in group conversations, unless you all know each other, you should be as legible as possible. My dad has a habit of making cryptic jokes so nobody can understand him. Unfortunately, his habit of illegibility has rubbed off me. The problem with that is nobody understands what I’m talking about sometimes…

Last updated: 25 July 2021