My social situation has been improving since the beginning of this school year, before I was known as a computer geek/nerd who is really shy around people. Now I'm more respected the "popular" people, cuz I'm good at sports and I get 90s in school without studying and I have a sense of humour. So now I got all these people that greet me in the halls and want to talk to me before/after school and during classes.
I have a problem with conversations, I don't think I'm a bad converstionist, it's just that I can't make small talks.
For example, when I talk to people in class we usually have rather long intellectual discussions. However this does not make me appear to be nerdy because my topics of discussion often spark interest in those who overhear. For example, sometimes earlier this week, I was having a debate with a fellow classmate about topics including history, morality and freedom. My math teacher got interested in my arguments that he stopped doing his marking and listened to our conversations, and my classmates were pretty impressed as well. And then one day my math teacher finished 10 minutes early and he asked me to "share information" the class during the time.
Now you can see that I can definitely talk and keep the interest of an audience there's just one problem. When people ask me in the halls, something like "Hey, What's up" or "How are you doing?" or "How's life?" or when something comes to your table and says "Studying for a test?", I usually fail to answer smoothly. I would usually just say "not much", but it would be rather awkward to be silent for the rest of the 3-5 minutes. I don't want to share too much of my personal life like *****ing about other people, and for trivial questions such as these.
Any advice from people on how to overcome this problem would be appreciated.
I have a problem with conversations, I don't think I'm a bad converstionist, it's just that I can't make small talks.
For example, when I talk to people in class we usually have rather long intellectual discussions. However this does not make me appear to be nerdy because my topics of discussion often spark interest in those who overhear. For example, sometimes earlier this week, I was having a debate with a fellow classmate about topics including history, morality and freedom. My math teacher got interested in my arguments that he stopped doing his marking and listened to our conversations, and my classmates were pretty impressed as well. And then one day my math teacher finished 10 minutes early and he asked me to "share information" the class during the time.
Now you can see that I can definitely talk and keep the interest of an audience there's just one problem. When people ask me in the halls, something like "Hey, What's up" or "How are you doing?" or "How's life?" or when something comes to your table and says "Studying for a test?", I usually fail to answer smoothly. I would usually just say "not much", but it would be rather awkward to be silent for the rest of the 3-5 minutes. I don't want to share too much of my personal life like *****ing about other people, and for trivial questions such as these.
Any advice from people on how to overcome this problem would be appreciated.
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