[rl, social oddness?] I kiiiindasorta get it, when it happens in RP? because we're posting in text form. And that allows people to take apart a paragraph, to respond to individual parts of it, appropriate or not.
char A: "How was my morning? How was my morning?? The cat woke me up half an hour before my alarm by jumping on my head. My favorite pair of colored contacts ripped. My roommate used up all the last of the coffee... and then I find the neighbor's kids picked all the flowers off my late mother's rosebushes!" Deep breath. "How was YOUR morning?"
char B: /calmly responds to each individual list item with about a paragraph of platitudes and discussion, as though A would've cheerfully, patiently waited for them to do so, or indeed even took a full breath between any of those bits, and seems to have entirely missed the forest for the trees. because to B, apparently each of those are whole topics
I mean- I get how the medium, aka text on a screen, would enable people to do that... but that's like saying "I see how cars enable people to go 100 mph through a residential neighborhood." I'm acknowledging the technical capability, not agreeing that it's justified.
I get that people want to volley conversation. but when I have a point to make that's more than about 2-3 sentences long, whether that's because I have something I want to share, or am answering a question.... and then get interrupted, sometimes midsentence, because I said some little thing that the other person decided they wanted to respond to, or it
because then people can get offended because you rdidn't address X point, or a cool conversation can happen because of specific Y point being focused on
WHY. No. Stop. Why do you get to tell your story, but not let me finish answering the question you asked, and are talking over me to do so?
Is this... am I just not understanding how this works irl, or...? because at this point, enough people have done it to me, I'm starting to question whether it's me or them.
see, I get finding a specific point in that to be interesting! like, back in the above example, maybe character C pauses a sec and goes, "Wait wait wait, your cat did that? You mean Buttons?" "Yes!!" "But Character B told me that Buttons died! D8"
but see, I don't see my other friends doing that to each other much. they let each other talk. they don't just jump in in that tiny pause between parts of a sentence, where a comma goes. so I'm just....
I'm still bothered that so far, three people in my own family have done this thing where like. I was in the kitchen, and they see me doing a thing with something they're not familiar with? "What's that stuff?"
"It's called X. It's used fo-"
"What's it for?"
and I just kinda paused, looked back at them, silent for a sec. :|
you know, maybe I need to remember to be quick with a variant of that, when dealing with one of my brothers in particular. "You're right, that was WAY more important than what I was currently in the middle of saying. "
I know that at least in RP, I try to make it fairly clear when my char's just going off quickly, like in that "how's my morning?" example, or a few chars are having a quick volley with each other and not really leaving room for things, because maybe they're interrupting each other? or a char asks something, only to right away go "never mind, don't care"
because sometimes there's just something fun about two chars blowing up at each other, and after not even ten seconds or so, one of them's stormed out, while the other's left standing there going "what just happened???"
sometimes it's not meant to be a thing that'd invite calm intervention, because honestly, if a third char were to try to step in, one of those chars would just immediately leave; they're not interested in talking this out. good freaking luck there. they're mad, they're slamming doors, they're not dealing with anyone or anything, the answer is no. /shrug!
you'd be surprised but there've been people who were shocked and dismayed that their char wasn't able to give an impassioned, well-thought-out speech that changed everything and ushered in a new era of peace and-
okay, I may be thinking on a particular player from a few years ago, tbh, but. XD
but seriously? two players are boomeranging very very short tags to carry on this fast little fight of an argument, and you think your character's three paragraphs are welcome here? well, kudos to you for the attempt, I guess? but I don't understand how you're shocked and scandalized that they ignored your attempt completely past flipping your char off.
XD Look sometimes a char can get in three paragraphs.. if they are soft spoken normally and start off with a heartfelt yelled 'shut up' to shock the others into silence XD
funny enough, I find it easier to get distracted by picking apart and responding to parts of tags/posts in OOC settings. at least then, it doesn't feel like I'm... uh... editing scenes into someone else's video segment, sort of? like, I really try to picture the tags being played out, to help figure out how to continue the scene in my own tags....
I hope i'm being good about that in my tags. I kinda got worse about that for a while, back when I first tried LJRP, since other people sometimes did it to me, and it was easy to fall into that trap of responding in kind, lol
but about the rp version... I know I've mentioned to some people, usually in PMs and stuff, but if ever you want to interrupt a tag of mine somewhere, just let me know and we can figure out where would be best for me to cut my tag! I'll go in, crop part of it out, and uh. probably paste it into Notepad, to maybe use bits of it later. XD
Yeah, RPwise it seems like DWRPers are strangely blind to paradoxes. See also having parallel threads on the same topic as if just doing alternate-universe versions of a thread...
As for IRL... definitely something I've noticed more since moving over to the "left coast". A lot of people who do it don't even seem to know what "um" means...
As in, "The beginning of what I was saying –" 'Oh OK! And here I go on a longer commentary on it than what you just said –' "Um –" '– and a whole lot else that might have been better informed if I'd let you keep talking –' "Um –"
'– and now I'm off on a complete tangent that only barely relates to what you were trying to talk about, making it hard for you to even keep in mind the rest of what you were saying –' "Um..."
it's kinda more baffling to me, that the one time I plowed on ahead to finish my damn three sentences about a thing, regardless of my brother having interrupted to try talking over me, he wanted to ~talk about this~ as if it were on me to solve it, like it's a failing on my part.
I don't really have a basis of comparison there for my brother in particular, since he doesn't seem to do that with anyone else? or at least, not so much that I've noticed.
but like, he actually tried to inform me about how usually in conversations, it's a back and forth, not just one person talking without letting the other person get a word in. ....I almost hung up on him, tbh.
But then, I have a bit of a history with the idea of "a conversation is supposed to be a back and forth" trying to be enforced to an artificial degree in the resource room.
I mean, on one hand, don't talk over people, but on the other, real conversations don't involve a question, a one-sentence answer followed by a question to the other person, and so on.
also doesn't, imho, involve cutting each other off after half a sentence to claim your back-and-forth. letting someone finish an idea before interrupting to change the subject is supposed to be how it works, right?
...is Alaska a one-party consent state? Because I really am starting to wonder if you need to record a few examples of this bullshit to share with a therapist. >_>
that might actually be interesting, too. start recording around my brother, then listen over it again later, and just... draw up a color-coded timeline of how long each person talked, who cut who off, who talked over who....
WHY. No. Stop. Why do you get to tell your story, but not let me finish answering the question you asked, and are talking over me to do so?
Is this... am I just not understanding how this works irl, or...? because at this point, enough people have done it to me, I'm starting to question whether it's me or them.
See? interesting thread to pull at!
"So it's this game set in a little village with animals for people, where you go in, you pick a spot to put your own house, -"
"What kind of animals?"
.....
"It's called X. It's used fo-"
"What's it for?"
and I just kinda paused, looked back at them, silent for a sec. :|
okay, I may be thinking on a particular player from a few years ago, tbh, but. XD
'Oh OK! And here I go on a longer commentary on it than what you just said –'
"Um –"
'– and a whole lot else that might have been better informed if I'd let you keep talking –'
"Um –"
"Um..."