For us quiet ones

Valleydachs

Any of my more quiet and reflective pals ever feel like when you DO contribute to a conversation or initiate one, that you often get your topic hijacked or that people talk over you or flat out ignore you? I don't know why I am experiencing this except that I seem to work with a lot of self absorbed turkeys and we all know it's ALL about them.

I tend to be very sensitive and when this happens either I retreat into my shell more or I just silently stew. Don't know if this has anything to do with it, but I'm a shorty at 5'2".

Does this happen to anyone else at work or with family or any time?

katamus

At work. It's not you, it's the jacka$$es around you. I decided that I wasn't going to bother a while back.. I'm a much happier person now. I do my own thing and they can all figure it out on their damn own.

hellotherecupcake

Some people are just very me, me, me. I just don't bother with those types of people anymore. Don't have the patience for them, don't need them in my life.

a_stone_girl_dances

I recommend trying to get rid of any preconceived notions when you contribute. I find that if you have the thought in your head already, you'll only see what you've decided you'd see. Also, remembering that other folks can be equally insecure and just have different ways of dealing with it. IE: talking about themself as a way to connect with others. To reflective folks, this appears self absorbed, but it's not always the case. Best of luck to you, I know it's rough.

Valleydachs

Not really preconceived. This actually does happen every day. But like people have advised and I am getting used to the idea, these ppl aren't worth my time an energy. I'm done with them (the ones at work, anyway).

The last time I looked, I wasn't invisible.

TexasRattlesnake

Ah, crap, I thought you were talking about the forums.

LishaCole

I am quiet, and observant. I can be assertive and outgoing when required, however, I like to hang back and people watch... people are quite entertaining. Especially the self absorbed turkeys.

Shelgirl001

Ah, crap, I thought you were talking about the forums.

Yeah, this...
But other places, also. The worst thing is though that I do find this at work etc, also. I guess I get self conscious when a group does stop to listen to me talk anyway ... lol

nikilovesaxl

I've decided to just stop talking around the people around me in general. I'm tired of getting walked all over :grumble: .

kissedbytheocean

Good gosh, yes. I'm very introverted and it's hard for me to keep up in conversations, but when I do manage, I feel like the other person just talks over me and or isn't really paying attention to my side of the conversation.

I also HATE when people interrupt me. I've been told a lot to get over it, because it's just something everyone does, but I still can't stand it. I work so hard to let others talk without me interrupting, I just want to be given the same respect.

mushroomcup

I'm quiet and very introverted in general, but when I do talk to people, I tend to bulldoze over them and monopolize conversation. I've been told I probably have Asperger's Syndrome, so that excuses me for being rude, yeah? Hehe

I tend to not care if people ignore me in conversation though. If people talk a lot about themselves rather than what I have to say, I don't mind. Some of my favorite friends are boisterous and self-absorbed. Maybe I'm a weirdo for liking that though.

Also, I don't think it has a whole lot to do with your height. I know feisty shorties. Of course, it IS easier to command attention if you are big. People make way for a giant.

Eve23

I understand what you saying. At work I generally sit back and enjoy the show unless I am brought into the conversation. One on one I don't generally find it a problem. I know it can be extremely frustrating when you feel railroaded however in the forums wether or not someone responds to you directly you are being heard.

I like the one on one mail feature for this because both parties are being heard.

Hang in there.

Learning2LoveMe

Good gosh, yes. I'm very introverted and it's hard for me to keep up in conversations, but when I do manage, I feel like the other person just talks over me and or isn't really paying attention to my side of the conversation.

I also HATE when people interrupt me. I've been told a lot to get over it, because it's just something everyone does, but I still can't stand it. I work so hard to let others talk without me interrupting, I just want to be given the same respect.

^^ This exactly! I usually give up and stand quietly, now people always say "why are you so quiet?". :laugh:

Go1096

same for me pretty much everywhere. FB--I can post something and totally get ignored. My friend says something totally random about traffic or a bird or something and she gets like 30 comments. lol! Does it matter? When I have a question absolutely.
Otherwise, I get over it.
At work, I get paid to work and not socialize so I don't let it get to me. With family, it happens a lot. I get mad but no one else really cares so I get over that too. Which is why I am such a loner.

BinaryPulsar

I've always been a quiet person. But, I'm also outgoing at other times. Some people say I am very quiet. Other people are shocked when they hear someone say that. But, yeah, I am a combination of being an introvert, but also I like to be around people, to engage in conversation and to entertain when I am feeling comfortable, in a happy mood, enjoying the people in my life, feeling energized. I feel shy inside in new situations, but it doesn't show on the outside. I try not to be around self-absorbed types if I can choose that.

I'm 5'2" also.

kissedbytheocean

same for me pretty much everywhere. FB--I can post something and totally get ignored. My friend says something totally random about traffic or a bird or something and she gets like 30 comments. lol! Does it matter? When I have a question absolutely.

I hate this, too. I'm starting to feel like social networking sites just aren't for me, because apparently I'm not bubbly enough or feel the need to share what kind of cereal I ate for breakfast.

amazing_shrinking_woman

I've come up with 3 ways to handle this but 2 of them only work face to face, so this is what i do and it has worked really well for me ( I work with a bunch of loud guys so I used to get talked over all the time, after 3 years, they are almost all trained to listen when I speak even though I'm low on the totem pole).

1)Stare - if it's 1 person that i am talking to who interrupts, I just paste a half smile on my face and stare at them. Do not nod your head, interrupt, quirk your eyebrows, break eye contact, nothing. Eventually they will think you are not following what they are talking about and ask you a question. I always start my answer with "oh, is it my turn to talk?"

2) Raise your hand - if you are in a group and some of the people are taking the conversation away from you, use what you learned in kindergarten: raise your hand and wait quietly to be called upon. It is so unusual to see an adult raise their hand it usually stops other conversations very quickly, and I've been told it's a little embarrassing for the last person to notice that everyone else stopped talking.

And if all else fails:

3) Self realization - it took me a while but I finally realized how awesome, funny and smart I really am, and that if other people don't want to listen to me, it's really their loss. Then i feel a little sad for them that they haven't gotten to bask in my awesomeness! (laugh if you want but it gets me through the day)

I just stick to these methods and it shows people that I expect to be listened to when i speak, just like I listen to them. No more problems here!

saragato

I don't talk much, mainly because my father raised me as a "shut up in public so you don't embarrass me" child. (loving b*stard, wasn't he?) I've had people think I don't like them because I'm so quiet (even my boyfriend, long before we began dating said the same thing, which was why it took us so long to get together) but a lot of times I don't have things to say or I'm scared.

Usually the talking over, interrupting, and weird looks of "why are we discussing this?" come from my family, both sides, and to me it's anger-inducing because I get ignored enough as it is. And I can relate to the FB thing. The only time I get comments is if I post something cutesy or some of my artwork in which case I'm "amazing, so cool, awesome" but if I post about something that upset me, angered me, or anything that's not everything but my life it's like the 60-something people that professed to want to keep up with me aren't there. I keep a locked blog for a diary because I figure I might as well get it out and know no one's going to read it anyway.

And y'know I admit I'm weird. I like reading books about psych wards and murderers, I know around 30+ facts about tea, I like telling weird personal stories like the time I accidentally drank a coke full of dead gnats, and not everyone likes that. I've been shunned because of my weirder qualities, but I'm still a person. If I'm supposed to give you the respect of letting you tell me a story about how you couldn't straighten your hair, then you give me the respect of telling you how I saw an alligator dead on the interstate.

Besides that, my quiet, listening nature has been abused too many times. I'm a listener, I like to let people vent and feel their dirty laundry won't go further than me but I've had people use me as a free therapist and then yell at me for any opinion they actually ask for. Knew a girl 5+ years and we went from her dating a girl in school, to wanting to have sex with her English teacher, to her now having an open relationship with a 40 year old guy who was porking 5 other women that lived all over the state. She'd ask my advice and if I said the wrong thing (such as common friggin sense) then she'd ignore me EVERYWHERE for months until she needed me again to pat her head and tell her that her life wasn't as much of a circus as it was. Best friend even used me, then told me one day she was apathetic to everyone else's problems and if I tried to talk about mine she trumped it with her "yeah well my mom makes me pay rent, kicks me out the house and you're not here to take me in, and I'm 21 years old and still work at a movie theater run by a man that explodes our system with porn viruses" and expect that to shut me up. Basically it was a p*ssing match.

And I'll, haha, be quiet as I think I'm starting to rant in anger.

mushroomcup

I've come up with 3 ways to handle this but 2 of them only work face to face, so this is what i do and it has worked really well for me ( I work with a bunch of loud guys so I used to get talked over all the time, after 3 years, they are almost all trained to listen when I speak even though I'm low on the totem pole).

1)Stare - if it's 1 person that i am talking to who interrupts, I just paste a half smile on my face and stare at them. Do not nod your head, interrupt, quirk your eyebrows, break eye contact, nothing. Eventually they will think you are not following what they are talking about and ask you a question. I always start my answer with "oh, is it my turn to talk?"

2) Raise your hand - if you are in a group and some of the people are taking the conversation away from you, use what you learned in kindergarten: raise your hand and wait quietly to be called upon. It is so unusual to see an adult raise their hand it usually stops other conversations very quickly, and I've been told it's a little embarrassing for the last person to notice that everyone else stopped talking.

And if all else fails:

3) Self realization - it took me a while but I finally realized how awesome, funny and smart I really am, and that if other people don't want to listen to me, it's really their loss. Then i feel a little sad for them that they haven't gotten to bask in my awesomeness! (laugh if you want but it gets me through the day)

I just stick to these methods and it shows people that I expect to be listened to when i speak, just like I listen to them. No more problems here!

Your methods seem a little passive aggressive. If I was upset about being ignored or talked over, I'd choose to either a. be direct to whomever was doing it, letting them know it's bothering me or b. walk away. It's cool that you learned to stand up for yourself though. ^_^ And some people do deserve passive aggressive behavior.

mushroomcup

I don't talk much, mainly because my father raised me as a "shut up in public so you don't embarrass me" child. (loving b*stard, wasn't he?) I've had people think I don't like them because I'm so quiet (even my boyfriend, long before we began dating said the same thing, which was why it took us so long to get together) but a lot of times I don't have things to say or I'm scared.

Usually the talking over, interrupting, and weird looks of "why are we discussing this?" come from my family, both sides, and to me it's anger-inducing because I get ignored enough as it is. And I can relate to the FB thing. The only time I get comments is if I post something cutesy or some of my artwork in which case I'm "amazing, so cool, awesome" but if I post about something that upset me, angered me, or anything that's not everything but my life it's like the 60-something people that professed to want to keep up with me aren't there. I keep a locked blog for a diary because I figure I might as well get it out and know no one's going to read it anyway.

And y'know I admit I'm weird. I like reading books about psych wards and murderers, I know around 30+ facts about tea, I like telling weird personal stories like the time I accidentally drank a coke full of dead gnats, and not everyone likes that. I've been shunned because of my weirder qualities, but I'm still a person. If I'm supposed to give you the respect of letting you tell me a story about how you couldn't straighten your hair, then you give me the respect of telling you how I saw an alligator dead on the interstate.

Besides that, my quiet, listening nature has been abused too many times. I'm a listener, I like to let people vent and feel their dirty laundry won't go further than me but I've had people use me as a free therapist and then yell at me for any opinion they actually ask for. Knew a girl 5+ years and we went from her dating a girl in school, to wanting to have sex with her English teacher, to her now having an open relationship with a 40 year old guy who was porking 5 other women that lived all over the state. She'd ask my advice and if I said the wrong thing (such as common friggin sense) then she'd ignore me EVERYWHERE for months until she needed me again to pat her head and tell her that her life wasn't as much of a circus as it was. Best friend even used me, then told me one day she was apathetic to everyone else's problems and if I tried to talk about mine she trumped it with her "yeah well my mom makes me pay rent, kicks me out the house and you're not here to take me in, and I'm 21 years old and still work at a movie theater run by a man that explodes our system with porn viruses" and expect that to shut me up. Basically it was a p*ssing match.

And I'll, haha, be quiet as I think I'm starting to rant in anger.

I think I love you.

Gidzmo

Any of my more quiet and reflective pals ever feel like when you DO contribute to a conversation or initiate one, that you often get your topic hijacked or that people talk over you or flat out ignore you? I don't know why I am experiencing this except that I seem to work with a lot of self-absorbed turkeys and we all know it's ALL about them.

I tend to be very sensitive and when this happens either I retreat into my shell more or I just silently stew. Don't know if this has anything to do with it, but I'm a shorty at 5'2". Does this happen to anyone else at work or with family or any time?

I'm a shorty, too (5'3" tall). I'm often interrupted in family/work situations. Then they either get annoyed when I do say something or wonder why I don't say much. Or they get upset with me when I get annoyed at being cut off.

stillthesamegirl

OMMMMMMMMMMG!!! YESSSSSSS!!!! WOW!! I have held back saying this many times.. You hit it on the head. Many people on here just go off talking about themselves and really have no care for what someone is going through.. They just want to talk about themselves... Or completely ignore the question.


OOPS sorry. I thought you were talking about the forums too. But this is common in every day life. At least with me.

jessicataylor2

It happens to me all the time. I'll try to say something and nobody even acknowledges it. So usually after a few times of this I'll just stop talking and listening and end up making myself feel even more left out.

saragato

OMMMMMMMMMMG!!! YESSSSSSS!!!! WOW!! I have held back saying this many times.. You hit it on the head. Many people on here just go off talking about themselves and really have no care for what someone is going through.. They just want to talk about themselves... Or completely ignore the question.


OOPS sorry. I thought you were talking about the forums too. But this is common in every day life. At least with me.

I think that's life. We all want to be important so when we get the chance to talk about ourselves, we want the other person to hurry up and shut up, some more than others. Along with being quiet I think it's also a matter of how assertive you are. If you're not, then people will trample on you or even use you. If you're assertive, it'll happen less, but most often it just turns into aggression and a fight begins or the person comes to dislike/hate you because you wanted to finish a sentence or put your two cents in without having to fight for "airwaves" so to speak.

I had a best friend who loved to turn every conversation to herself and her personal woes and she trampled on me enough and belittled what I had to say because to her, life was about her and it owed her its collective ears. It made her barely tolerable to be around and it took me 9 years to get the courage to finally stop being quiet about her and tell her to shove off. And lo and behold she goes behind my back where I can't interject to make up stories about me. I barely got a say in our friendship and she made sure when I said goodbye she was getting the joy of not letting me have any say in the rumors she spread.

Call it a pessimistic view but humans can be and are very shallow individuals. How shallow just depends on the person and, incidentally, their desire to keep their tongues wagging.

MeRevisitedAgain

I can't believe so many people feel the same way I do. I hardly ever speak on it though. It even goes as far as I feel like I am being treated like a baby. People talk over me, misunderstand me because I'm quite and take it for being sneaky or can't be trusted. They feel like they have to protect me and speak for me and I hate it. Glad I'm not alone.

Learning2LoveMe

I've come up with 3 ways to handle this but 2 of them only work face to face, so this is what i do and it has worked really well for me ( I work with a bunch of loud guys so I used to get talked over all the time, after 3 years, they are almost all trained to listen when I speak even though I'm low on the totem pole).

1)Stare - if it's 1 person that i am talking to who interrupts, I just paste a half smile on my face and stare at them. Do not nod your head, interrupt, quirk your eyebrows, break eye contact, nothing. Eventually they will think you are not following what they are talking about and ask you a question. I always start my answer with "oh, is it my turn to talk?"

2) Raise your hand - if you are in a group and some of the people are taking the conversation away from you, use what you learned in kindergarten: raise your hand and wait quietly to be called upon. It is so unusual to see an adult raise their hand it usually stops other conversations very quickly, and I've been told it's a little embarrassing for the last person to notice that everyone else stopped talking.

And if all else fails:

3) Self realization - it took me a while but I finally realized how awesome, funny and smart I really am, and that if other people don't want to listen to me, it's really their loss. Then i feel a little sad for them that they haven't gotten to bask in my awesomeness! (laugh if you want but it gets me through the day)

I just stick to these methods and it shows people that I expect to be listened to when i speak, just like I listen to them. No more problems here!

I love #2 :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: That made me laugh so hard, I might have to try it!