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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   1932 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 1, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Okay, this is silly, but suppose you're seated at a table like this.

You're middle-right, double-fisting your iced tea and lemon water. Your two talkative, outgoing friends are at the top. They tend to drive the conversation, so the focus is in that direction most of the time. Your two shy, reserved friends are at the bottom. How do you play this so that your quiet friends feel included in the conversation and not like they're staring at the back of your head the whole time. You'd like to slide back a bit like middle-left, but the seats on your side are bolted to the floor.

Aside: it's pretty great being able to get ai-generated images to illustrate points.

You fucked up. You gotta have the right people in the middle.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HwcOT1ae_Kk?feature=shared

It's very considerate of you to even entertain this quandary. I am not sure if there's a physical solution short of moving people around, but the usual diverting of questions and throwing attention toward the quiet people in the way of random commentary and "What did you say that one time about..?" to refocus attention their way would be my own strategy.

You didn't ask for this next comment but quiet people are often fine being quiet and even prefer the audience role, which is of course something else that only you can gauge from the moment and the individuals involved.

The middle seat is precious real estate.

Have you ever noticed the level of jockeying that happens for a middle seat when a big group goes to a restaurant? Most of the time, the first person to come in won't go all the way to the end. Instead, they'll snag a seat directly in the middle and make people walk around them.

Being a contrarian, and convinced that my conversational abilities are not in need of artificial enhancement, I tend to take a seat at the end. I tell myself this makes me better than other people, lol.

Make snide comments about the overly social friends to your shy friends. Hopefully not mean, at least a little ribbing. The best comment would be something that is funny if the social friend hears it and mean if said behind their back all the time.

  1. If the social ones don't hear it, their fault for excluding the rest of the table. If they do hear it it can be a light reminder that the rest of the table exists.
  2. The social ones are usually extra attuned to outside conversations about themselves, they are likely to hear it and interrupt their own conversation. Most other topics will not pull them in.
  3. The shy ones are given a relevant topic to discuss that is right in front of them. It is unique to the situation. The best conversation topics are maximally inclusive with the person you are talking with and maximally exclusive with everyone else.

Or just ignore your social friends occasionally and engage in conversation with the shy ones. You can always come back to the social friends later if the shy friend conversation fizzles out. They will definitely still be talking.

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