wow… good post

none of us actually care about how anyone else’s weekends were or how the other person’s kids are doing.

got it, you ask to fake interest in the other person so he feels valued. Seems ridiculous and a waste of intellect.

It seems the best I can do is working alone. These rituals are way too complicated for me.

does this also work with women? most nurses I work with are women and are simply incapable of being silent more than 2 minutes.

they may be offended in short term. but in the long you will have more respect.

they WILL be offended and proceed to furiously talk behind my back and destroy my credibility

I’m very introverted and to me any kind of question about me is a prying one: my age, where I was born, how long I’ve been living where I am. I simply don’t get why I have to tell my coworkers about this, nor I understand why they get offended if I don’t answer the question. If I’m fired or I quit I’m not going to see them ever again. Who cares?

I’m a nurse and at my hospital there are rituals that bore me but anyone else finds, apparently, great: after report, talking time, usually 30 minutes. They talk about boring stuff, are loud and obnoxious, I simply don’t understand why adults act like this. I read to pass the time, but have to be there with them because we’re officially working. This happens at least three times per shift: once more to have lunch (for whatever reason we ALL must have lunch together, even if it means not having your own chair) and after charting, where, once again, I must remain with them because that’s officially working time. If I leave, have a seat in the pause room and start reading, I get yelled at, no matter than I can also hear the bell from there.

It gets very boring. God my new job cannot start soon enough.

I don’t have the luxury of having my own working station.

I’ve started to do extra chores just not to have to hear them. It also reduces the chance of them asking me about me.

that would be cruel, this is a very insensitive comment

being nice is all it takes.

if you mean I have to do this I shouldn’t even waste my time and look for jobs where I work alone. Step 2 is already Get to know your coworkers which for the most part, are irrelevant to me. And I can’t fake that.

Saying hi is not enough?

I have no problem with those who have something interesting to say but most of them for the most part care about stuff so asinine it makes me want to kill them and then myself.

Either I learn really fast to deflect very successfully or I start working alone. To keep my sanity.

You don’t have to socialize. But being a decent person means sacrificing your comfort for others’ sometimes.

you seem to imply there’s something like a middle point between fully socializing and being decent, which I guess means talking but less? Is this so?

Yeah every single one of your coworkers is childish on an elementary school level, sure.

I guess I should’ve written ‘my coworkers sometimes behave like elementary school children’ which is every time they have nothing to do. This is what I feel. I guess to them, they ain’t being childish but engaging. To me it still feels childish.

You either work with a ton of real weirdos, or more likely are way overemphasizig to get people to take your complaints more seriously.

I don’t believe I’m overemphasizing. This is how perceive reality. And I haven’t even started with the patient population

Your perception of yourself and your coworkers is not as objective and devoid of emotion as you think.

you are right, everything I wrote is how I perceive reality, which is, mostly subjective, but to me it still feels objective, if that makes sense. I don’t believe my post (the one that started the thread) is objective, it’s how I perceive my coworkers.

You don’t sound ND, you just sound like you don’t care to change. That’s different.

the people who criticize me are not that important to me that warrant I change to some version of what they consider better. I’ve reached a point where it doesn’t make sense anymore to try to be a better, more knowledgeable professional but simply finding a job where people leave me alone. At least I’d be happier.

I guess I’m full misanthrope now

I guess it’s ‘good’ I can ‘change’ if I so decide? but really, change, for what?

They demand authenticity and complain that people express emotions in the same sentence.

wait, you are right. My coworkers are authentic and they get along among themselves, whereas my way of being authentic seems to be the complete opposite. They are authentic being silly, loud and childish, I am authentic reading a book and not yapping.

We are simply incompatible. I mean its sad people believe a workplace is like an elementary school, but, what can I do to change it? Nothing. I’m glad I’m leaving. In future, I’ll look for jobs where I don’t have to endure silly people like this, a work with as less human contact as possible, or at least with no needy patients that demand you listen to their rants and become their therapist for 4 hours per shift. God I hate that.

The whole post can be summarized as “Life would be so much better if other people’s thoughts and behaviours were organized around me and my preferences”.

while true, I’d suggest ‘Life would be so much better if other people’s thoughts were left unsaid and coworkers let me work’

this is a chance to start looking for better fitting jobs.

I’m in my 50s, always feel like an alien, and still think I’m 19yo.

don’t let anyone take your inner child away. Don’t let society change this about you.

I’m guessing that wasn’t what you wanted to hear.

it’s ok, the book is already helpful. At this point I have no expectations about society anymore. It’s survival mechanisms what interest me.

Everything you do has been your choice to do.

I don’t know. To me this “choice” feels like a natural response, a default one, the easy answer. I’m not a patient person. “Choosing” to give another answer feels completely strange, foreign, not me, being fake and feels like a waste of time.

I’ve at some time adjusted my field of work to be 100% remote, and now I’m seeing how to change even that. I’ve eliminated Interactions with undesired people almost completely.

then “all” I have to do is to keep looking for jobs where I almost never interact with people…

I’m sorry but I don’t quite understand your answer: are you telling me to start telling them about chess? because if you’re suggesting I think about several possible answers to prying questions well, I’m simply incapable of doing it fast enough. I’m glad you can, but I simply cannot.

You also edited your comment here, at first you were saying something about the person you’re replying to sounding boring.

please point where that happened as I have no clue what you’re talking about. Maybe quoting what I changed?

By getting “why do you talk so little?” and responding with “why do you talk so much?”, You’re doing what they do to you back to them.

absolutely. I answer a question with another question. Keep playing stupid games, you’ll keep getting stupid prizes.

you can say these words in the nicest way possible, and this exchange still sounds confrontational.

then why do they start it? I’m never the one pestering anyone about why they’re blond, tall, fat…

wow, what a beautiful post.

Autism makes it hard to think outside a tried and true path. That rigidity is difficult to deal with, but may be worth looking into.

what do you mean ‘may be worth looking into.’?

because some people here offer good advice

You don’t need to tell people they’re being boring.

where did you get that from? I don’t tell them directly they bore me, that’s what I think as I imagine leaving.

You can just leave and not interact and thus not hurt their feelings, and thus not have conflict with people.

actually that’s not true: if extrovert A says something I don’t care about, I wait patiently till he ends it and I leave, he will feel offended (an extrovert explained this to me). I don’t understand it but apparently it’s like this.

There is no need to go for confrontation, asking why someone talks so little might just be a way of trying to include them in a group or getting to know them, and it sounds like OP just responds as hostile as possible.

why is answering a question with another question confrontational? this is a boundaries issue.

I can’t believe I have to explain this, but here it goes: if people talk much or less is purely subjective: what to introverted A is too much is for extroverted B too little.

extroverted B asked from his subjective point of view, introverted A simply answered from his also subjective point of view.

Why is this confrontational to you?

it sounds like OP just responds as hostile as possible.

wrong again, I calmly state that question. You seem to believe I start yelling at them or looking at them as if I wanted to hurt them.

my main question to you is this: why is answering a question with another question confrontational? this is about boundaries.