Cayenne comments on Mitigating Social Awkwardness - Less Wrong

27 Post author: Cayenne 01 May 2011 12:54AM

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Comment author: Cayenne 01 May 2011 01:20:35AM 1 point [-]

You can try to practice in front of a mirror. I don't know how much that will help, but it may.

Voice control is hard for some people. Singing with pop music, and just using your voice more in general perhaps will help.

In either case, you're running into some serious difficulties. I wish I could offer better advice or help.

Comment author: playtherapist 01 May 2011 07:55:31PM 5 points [-]

I'm atypical of people on this board, as some of you might know. I found it through my son, who fits the demographics much more. I'm a clinical social worker/ child therapist- thus my name "play therapist". What I didn't see mentioned, which I think is probably a more common problem than people not using the right body language to convey what they mean to, is not picking up on the body language, tone of facial expressions and tone of voice of people you are speaking to. I don't have any easy answers about how to learn to read them, it's something that is intuitive for most people. If you can learn to read people that way, though, it will be a huge help in social interactions. For example, when you say something and there is no response, there will usually be non-verbal cues as to whether you were heard.

Comment author: Cayenne 01 May 2011 08:00:29PM 1 point [-]

Perhaps watching people taking acting lessons might help? Those people are trying to learn body language, vocalization, and effective communication, so seeing what they do when they get it right may help with learning how to read others.

Comment author: playtherapist 01 May 2011 08:06:47PM 0 points [-]

I think watching people taking acting lessons must be a very good way to learn how to read others. Unfortunately, it's not something that's very convenient for most people to do. I think focusing in on the facial expressions and body language of good actresses and actors while watching movies, t.v., etc. would help, too.