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How shy are you?

Started by Jockice, June 02, 2021, 04:33:32 PM

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jamiefairlie

Yeah that's my experience too Icehaven.

Except I secretly do think I'm better than them 👍

Jockice

I have this presentation tomorrow by the way. I have some slides to show but I'll be winging it as to what I'm going to say. It could go either way but I've tried writing a script but my brain just doesn't work like that and my printer's not working anyway. So there we go. If it goes wrong it won't be the first time I've made a dick of myself and it certainly won't be the last.

Ferris

Practice sections of it until you know what you're going to say, then write down key sentences every ~4 minutes of waffle/explanation and use that as your guide (vs writing the whole thing down as a script and reading it word by word). Works as a reminder, keeps you on the right track, and makes sure you cover all the key pieces you have. It also lets you speak in a way that feels more normal but you can't really ever wander too far off base.

That's what I used to do and it worked reasonably well, and it sounds like we have similar presentation anxiety (?) though maybe not.

Jockice

Ta, I'm going to sort out the slides into some sort of order, do a rehearsal then go to bed, I think. I have till midday tomorrow to sort it out. I'm hoping the slides I'm using will act as a cue for me. I had to do a Zoom thing earlier this evening (a monthly union meeting) and I surprised everyone by speaking quite a lot. Usually I say about three words, so I've put in a bit of practice in front of a live audience.

I've reached the point of....not looking forward to it...but being sort of glad I agreed to it. Like I said, I never particularly liked doing presentations but I was actually quite good at them. But it's been a long time, so I may just swoon at the start and spend the next hour lying on the floor.

Ferris

You'll be fine. Doing preparation ahead of time means you're ahead of 90% of people doing presentations so you're laughing.

Jockice

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on June 14, 2021, 10:42:07 PM
You'll be fine. Doing preparation ahead of time means you're ahead of 90% of people doing presentations so you're laughing.

I may just burst out laughing, as I did during my German oral exam at school. First question was 'was ist dein vater?' How the fuck was I supposed to know what a probation officer was in German? So I just started laughing. After about five minutes of me being unable to answer anything I was laughing, the examiner was laughing and my teacher was laughing. I got a CSE grade four and I was lucky to get that.

I'm not going to get marked for this, it's a voluntary thing and I have warned everyone likely to be there it (i had to write a short intro for the thing) that I haven't done this sort of thing for a long time and that I can find it difficult to speak (in fact two of those who may be there are trainee speech therapists I've been working with), so I'm unlikely to get booed off. It'll be okay, I was just panicking beforehand but now I'm pretty relaxed. Whether I'll still be in 13 hours remains to be seen though.

Blue Jam

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on June 11, 2021, 06:40:55 PM
I am very... shy? Introverted? (whatever the word is) when introduced to new situations, though I think that is just my generalized anxiety which I've realized recently I have in spades and I think I always have done. Silly things like going into new shops or meeting neighbours/colleagues/friends of friends etc fills me with a deep existential dread.

...until I know them, then I am very comfortable and do a good impression of someone who is extroverted.

This is another reason why I just can't buy into the whole "Introvert/Extrovert" thing. I've seen a lot of people claim "I'm an introvert but act like an extrovert at work" etc and it makes me wonder- how do you know the "Extroverts" around them aren't just doing the exact same thing? That those people who seem confident and comfortable in their own skin aren't secretly riddled with anxiety and insecurity? That those people smiling through the office Xmas do aren't looking for the first excuse to leave early? It's like Armando Iannucci said, We're All Twats.

robhug

Theres nothing worse than people who claim to be really shy when they clearly aren't shy in the least.

And there's a teacher who constantly tell's my son, who is quiet, not to be shy in such a forceful way that gives the impression its one of the most heinous crimes on earth. 

Blue Jam

I have just discovered the Personality Database, where armchair psychiatrists are invited to decide on the personality types of total strangers, historical figures no-one alive has actually met, and fictional characters who don't even physically exist:

https://www.personality-database.com/

Check out this list and note how many comedians are supposedly "Introverts". Personally I can't see how anyone who willingly gets on a stage and makes themself the centre of attention in a situation that most people would find utterly nightmarish could be described as an introvert, but there you go:

https://www.personality-database.com/subcategory/3850/comedians-pop-culture-mbti-personality-type

1% of voters think Ricky Gervais is introverted.

I love how predictable all of this is too. 100% of the voters on Albert Einstein's page decided he must have been an introvert and he's also an INTP, you know, the rarest personality type that he only shares with half of the users on Reddit. Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer on the other hand must be big dumb extroverts (and the comments are also exactly what you'd expect).

Zetetic

Quote from: Blue Jam on June 15, 2021, 12:43:57 PM
how do you know the "Extroverts" around them aren't just doing the exact same thing? That those people who seem confident and comfortable in their own skin aren't secretly riddled with anxiety and insecurity?
Presumably, in the same way that all humans make any judgement about others' internal states - somewhat unreliably, by observation and by asking the people involved?

Blue Jam

My favourite personality categorisation system is The Four Temperaments- Sanguine (blood), Choleric (yellow bile), Melancholic (black bile), Phlegmatic (phlegm, surprisingly enough). Obviously it's total bollocks and we aren't really governed by our precious bodily fluids in this way (especially as "black bile" doesn't even exist) but it's a lot of fun as a trope of fiction. Weirdly describes The Beatles pretty closely too:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FourTemperamentEnsemble

Jockice

It went okay. That's all I have to say on this matter.

Kelvin

Quote from: Jockice on June 15, 2021, 01:35:13 PM
It went okay. That's all I have to say on this matter.

Don't be shy.

bakabaka

Quote from: Jockice on June 15, 2021, 01:35:13 PM
It went okay. That's all I have to say on this matter.
Very glad to hear it.[nb]Obviously I didn't hear it; I'm not one of your co-workers stalking you online.[/nb] Well done.

Zetetic

Quote from: Blue Jam on June 11, 2021, 04:38:37 PM
That's another problem here- the whole "introvert" thing must seem like a slap in the face for people with actual diagnosed disabilities. Why should we strive to make workplaces "introvert-friendly" when many aren't yet LGBT+ friendly, autism friendly, wheelchair-friendly etc?
I've tried a few times to put together a fuller response to this, and struggled to for a few reasons. Being moderately brief instead:

I don't really think that a culture of reasonable adjustment and tolerance is undermined by more people suggesting that they'd benefit from differentiation in working environments, rather than relying on some sort of medico-legal gatekeeping to decide whether it's right or not to make it easier for people to do whatever it is they're there to do.

Speaking personally, I've no idea whether I have a "genuine mental illness" or an "actual ... disability". I've been prescribed a tricyclic for over a decade and over half my life. My arms are covered with scars from digging through them with Stanley knife blades and screwdrivers. I spent most of Monday wanting to cycle under a truck to avoid having to write 800 words on something I didn't give a shit about. I dearly wish I felt comfortable putting this stuff down to some separate disease entity between me and the world, rather than just being - at heart - a fuckup.

Autism possibly offers some hints here - with it historically and currently being a completely useless category for describing individual functioning, with its conception as a disorder in need of resolution being rejected by many in favour of seeing it as a individual difference integral to someone's identity, with it sometimes offering perfect examples of disability being something constructed between society and the affected person rather than essential to the latter.

Blue Jam

Hi Zetetic, sorry to hear all that, and in hindsight I may have been a bit harsh and flippant. I really didn't mean to upset you, and I'm sorry.

For me one problematic thing is the way "Introverts" actually don't claim to have a disorder or disability and insist there's nothing wrong with them and people just need to make adaptations to them- but how can you adapt to someone who resists a classification that would tell you exactly how you should adapt, especially when the "I need alone time to recharge" thing is vague and subjective and the concept is so broad and so many people claim to fit it? I've done one of those Buzzfeed-type quizzes and apparently I'm an "Introvert" too, even though I really don't feel like one. And if personality types are as set in stone as they claim, surely "Extroverts", "Ambiverts" etc are equally unable to adapt, and equally in need of people to adapt to them?

This is where is all falls apart for me- humans are a social species and it's useful to be able to adapt to one another to get on, it's also learned behaviour and good to learn how to give and take, and I don't think people who are capable of making the effort should leave it to others to take up the slack. I've had colleagues with fibromyalgia and autism spectrum disorders and I've been thankful when they've told me and happy to adapt, but if someone tells me they're an Introvert and can't lead a presentation so I should do it instead? Sorry but no.

(The whole thing of flaking out on plans at the last minute for no good reason is a bit of a bugbear for me too, I once had a friend who did this constantly and it was humiliating, it always made me feel so worthless. Making a habit of that is just rude, sorry)

Lockdown has made me consider the diversity of working environments a bit more. I'm not a parent but I really have benefited from being able to work flexible hours. In particular when I have to carry out fiddly procedures or those involving dangerous chemicals and I've had someone suddenly decide that's a good time to make smalltalk or ask if they can borrow a pen. (that's not me being "Introverted" and them being "Extroverted" though, that's them being inconsiderate and me being a grumpy irritable bastard). Open-plan offices aren't great and I appreciate that some people really struggle with them (I'm quite sociable but really need silence for some of my work) but I also accept that they're very cheap and probably a necessary evil when we should be diverting most of our funding to research.

I also used to do undergraduate teaching, and I did think about bringing quieter students "out of their shells" and how to be sensitive about it, and reading about this "Introvert/Extrovert" thing I was saddened to see how many people seem to consider this "bullying" behaviour. I used to chair debates and felt I needed to make an effort to stop the two or three more confident and opinionated students dominating the discussion and to let the quieter students feel able to make a contribution- and to get as much out of the course as everyone else (and to get their money's worth). Encouraging everyone to speak up, or hold back when appropriate, just seems fair to me.

Quote from: robhug on June 15, 2021, 12:50:35 PM
Theres nothing worse than people who claim to be really shy when they clearly aren't shy in the least.

That's it for me, hearing a confident and outspoken lecturer say "I'm an introvert" is a bit like someone who's the life and soul of the party claim to have "social anxiety", or a bit like someone being tidy and saying "Oooooh, I'm so OCD!" I just think it belittles serious conditions and spreads misunderstanding and maybe reinforces the stigma a bit.

Quote from: robhug on June 15, 2021, 12:50:35 PM
And there's a teacher who constantly tell's my son, who is quiet, not to be shy in such a forceful way that gives the impression its one of the most heinous crimes on earth.

That however does sound like bullying behaviour. Seriously, have a word. In a situation like that someone should perhaps be wondering why a child they have responsibility over is being quiet, not berating them for it. Maybe there's bullying involved- or maybe the teacher is just crap and uninspiring and should reconsider their teaching style. I was very quiet at school for various reasons and being shamed over it never did anything to help. Shame is just a terrible motivating factor in general.

Ferris

Quote from: Blue Jam on June 15, 2021, 12:43:57 PM
This is another reason why I just can't buy into the whole "Introvert/Extrovert" thing. I've seen a lot of people claim "I'm an introvert but act like an extrovert at work" etc and it makes me wonder- how do you know the "Extroverts" around them aren't just doing the exact same thing? That those people who seem confident and comfortable in their own skin aren't secretly riddled with anxiety and insecurity? That those people smiling through the office Xmas do aren't looking for the first excuse to leave early? It's like Armando Iannucci said, We're All Twats.

There's a difference between being naturally extroverted and outgoing[nb]though you're right, these are colloquial umbrella terms to describe people's social interactions rather than scientific terms[/nb], and doing an impression of it (which is what I do). I am consciously sort of... pretending, I suppose, second guessing everything and largely being someone I'm very much not and it's a bit of a relief to be able to stop doing it.

Feels a bit like being an alien tbh though I've always been a very dry and cynical sort of person which is probably a bit of conversational cul de sac unless the other person has a similar personality, and if they do how have we come across each other in this social interaction?

Very rarely I will meet someone and click with them immediately and drop the act right away, but we're talking like a dozen people total in my life to date.

Zetetic

#77
Quote from: Blue Jam on June 15, 2021, 10:23:47 PM
Hi Zetetic, sorry to hear all that, and in hindsight I may have been a bit harsh and flippant. I really didn't mean to upset you, and I'm sorry.
I don't want to overstate that you upset me - I promise there's no need to apologise. I thought your post was interesting, because I felt strongly that I disagreed with it - indeed thought it was dangerously wrong - but struggled to articulate why. I didn't think you were at all flippant - this is clearly something that genuinely exercises you.

QuoteFor me one problematic thing is the way "Introverts" actually don't claim to have a disorder or disability and insist there's nothing wrong with them and people just need to make adaptations to them
If you replace "introverts" with "autistic people", does this lead you to the same place?

Does this depend on whether the autistic person accepts that there is "something wrong with them" (my emphasis, I should note)?

Edit: To be clear - I'm asking because I don't think you would let it lead you to the same place. But one of things that I took against in what you wrote was the sense that this was a necessary trade-off - you can only buy adjustment with the admission that you are diseased.

Quotebut how can you adapt to someone who resists a classification that would tell you exactly how you should adapt
But no psychological classification ever does that, and I say that as someone as who loves classification. No mental illness label does this. No development disability label does this.

They're not irrelevant (or else what would be the point of classification?) but a major defining feature of the change in how mental illnesses and learning disabilities and developmental differences like autism have been understood - both by the general public and specialist services - is that you must in each case make sense of the condition in the context of the person.

QuoteI've done one of those Buzzfeed-type quizzes and apparently I'm an "Introvert" too, even though I really don't feel like one. And if personality types are as set in stone as they claim, surely "Extroverts", "Ambiverts" etc are equally unable to adapt, and equally in need of people to adapt to them?
Sure.

As I've said before, I think a lot of this comes down to the gap between "we've managed to find some measurable differences between humans, that are somewhat persistent and somewhat reliable between self- and peer-report" and "we've stuck a label on that and now there's a folk psychology industry".

(Edit: I agree with your feelings about the overstating of the general fixed-ness of humans and personality.)

QuoteThis is where is all falls apart for me- humans are a social species and it's useful to be able to adapt to one another to get on, it's also learned behaviour and good to learn how to give and take, and I don't think people who are capable of making the effort should leave it to others to take up the slack.
Sure, and there's a bigger conversation here about what "mental illness" and "mental impairments" and "disability" (as a thing that an individual has) do in terms of excusing and blaming, and how much that actually makes sense. (As an aside, the things that are explicitly excluded from being a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act are hilariously/terrifyingly/upsettingly judgemental in nature. As always addictions don't count as being properly unwell in a moral fashion.)




Zetetic

Can't be bothered to crowbar this in properly, but: I've been thinking about the Universal Design for Learning framework quite a bit recently, as a neat description of various kinds of differentiation in the context of teaching. (Worth also noting the contrast with the broadly discredited idea that you should tailor teaching to individuals' "learning style".)

(I despise the diagrams of meat, but you can't have everything.)


Retinend

What's the point of equating introverts with autistic people, suddenly?

Zetetic

I'm not. I'm asking whether it works for a different group that isn't the same as the first, and whether that turns on the applicability of terms like "disorder" and "disability" to the state of the individual.

(There's clearly a further discussion about other things it might turn on.)

Retinend

Well, it doesn't work (I guess "it" means "Blue Jam's statement") if you swap out "introvert" for a real disorder or disability, e.g. autism.


it would read:

"one problematic thing is the way sufferers from a disorder or disability actually don't claim to have a disorder or disability and insist there's nothing wrong with them"

making no sense

Zetetic

Is autism a disorder? Is autism a disability?

If you disagree with both of those - on the basis that you don't think that being autistic is something wrong and that disability is something generated in interactions with society - do you forfeit something?

Zetetic

Quote from: Retinend on June 16, 2021, 08:22:44 AM
making no sense
I don't actually see why that "makes no sense".

Surely you can decide that someone has something "wrong with them" and they can disagree?

Retinend

Quote from: Zetetic on June 16, 2021, 08:25:58 AM
Is autism a disorder? Is autism a disability?

Yes it is a disorder/disability.. for me? My father worked with children with it, across the spectrum, and most of them were unable to hold a conversation with someone and were often inexplicably violent towards people they normally had good relationships with, such as parents, carers or teachers.



Quote from: Zetetic on June 16, 2021, 08:28:06 AM
I don't actually see why that "makes no sense".

I take your point that the "suffers from a disorder" part of the sentence could be imposed on the person, rather than willingly accepted. Is that what you object to regarding the label "introvert"? I dont think most autistic people care what the world labels them as, since they care little about what others think. Are we talking about real autism, or the high-functioning kind only?

Zetetic

Quote from: Retinend on June 16, 2021, 08:32:17 AM
across the spectrum, and most of them were unable to hold a conversation with someone.
QuoteAre we talking about real autism, or the high-functioning kind only?
I think this demonstrates the problem with the idea that prevailing psychiatric classifications give good information - on their own- about adjustments, incidentally.

Let's assume that if we're talking about workplace adjustments, then we're probably talking about people with some verbal ability.

Does "high-functioning" autism not count as a disorder or a disability then? Does being "high-functioning' disqualify you from asking people to make adjustments for you?

QuoteI take your point that the "suffers from a disorder" part of the sentence could be imposed on the person, rather than willingly accepted.
And similarly the placement of disability with the individual, rather than in how they're treated by society.

QuoteI dont think most autistic people care what the world labels them as, since they care little about what others think.
To the extent that anyone cares about labels, a decent number of autistic people certainly seem to.

QuoteIs that what you object to regarding the label "introvert"?
??? I'm not objecting to or endorsing the use of the label "introvert" in any of this.

earl_sleek

Quote from: Retinend on June 16, 2021, 08:32:17 AM
I dont think most autistic people care what the world labels them as, since they care little about what others think.

This is quite a damaging, though sadly common myth. I've known many autistic people who cared a lot about what other people thought of them, sometimes obsessively so.

Jockice

Quote from: bakabaka on June 15, 2021, 01:43:23 PM
Very glad to hear it.[nb]Obviously I didn't hear it; I'm not one of your co-workers stalking you online.[/nb] Well done.

Ta.
Two things though.
1) It has left me more knackered than anything else I've done for years. After it had finished I went out for a short drive just to get out of the house, came home and went straight to bed. This was around 4pm. I've only just got up again. All I did was watch a bit of the France/Germany match, and fell asleep during 999: What's Your Emergency. Apart from that I did nowt. I couldn't even work up the energy to have a wank.

2) A couple of people who said they were going to attend didn't. One is perfectly understandable as she started a new work placement on Monday and said it depended on her shift. She also texted me a nice apology last night that I read this morning. But the other. Grrr. She said she'd definitely be there. Put it in her diary and all that. But wasn't there. I was so surprised I sent her a jokey message on messenger yesterday afternoon which she hasn't replied to even though she's definitely been online. The thing is that if it hadn't been for her I probably wouldn't have done it in the first place*, so I am thoroughly fucked off.

(*That sounds like I'm a stalker or something. But I'm not. The basic story is that she's an academic who I told about my failed PhD, she said I should try and do something with it and it set off a germ in my head that maybe I should. We've been sporadically in touch for the last couple of years and she encouraged me to do this, even though I hadn't done any public speaking for a long time. And then doesn't fucking turn up for it. Just hope she has a decent excuse. Bastard clever people.)

Retinend

Quote from: earl_sleek on June 16, 2021, 08:42:20 AM
This is quite a damaging, though sadly common myth. I've known many autistic people who cared a lot about what other people thought of them, sometimes obsessively so.

Of course those high-functioning cases exist, since autism is a spectrum, but Zetetic's question was about whether autism per se is a disability. It is. Most cases of autism are clear cases of disability in the literal sense of the word - not able to function in the real world - and it's because they lack empathy and communication skills. It is not a myth. My father would teach them to recognise the basic emotions using flashcards, for instance, and we're talking about individuals without the power of speech for the most part.

bakabaka

Quote from: Zetetic on June 15, 2021, 11:32:49 PM
(Worth also noting the contrast with the broadly discredited idea that you should tailor teaching to individuals' "learning style".)
Discredited or just too expensive and awkward to fit into a universal target system for evaluation? I'd be very interested in seeing any research that shows better results for non-individual teaching methods for any but those most central to the bell curve.

Not getting involved in the autism discussion; done it too often in the last 15 years.