this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
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Autism
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When I was younger I also was told that I had a bit of a "debbie downer" presence.
Something that helped me was the concept of "yes and", when someone says something, find anything in, or tangential to, their statement that you can either :
Then the "and" part, add something of your own to the conversation.
Force yourself to balance your natural negativity with forced positivity and over time you may find that you no longer have to force it, and that you enjoy finding hidden positives in things, like a game, it turns conversation into a puzzle.
In general, people like being agreed with. So sometimes before disagreeing you can even say, "I agree with X part" and then instead of saying you blatantly disagree, change your tone to something like, "I would probably modify Y and see if I like it." It's all about controlling your tone and playing to human tendencies.
Once you get to know someone better, you can be a bit looser, some people like autistic truths. Know your audience, sometimes it's as easy as asking, "Oh, am I being too negative, I try not to do that."
Good luck!
This is good advice. Interactions between people usually have loose scripts, but are mostly improv, and a big part of that is encouraging the other person to keep talking about what they are interested in. The hard part for me is usually when I find I don't have much to add, but usually I try to agree and paraphrase what they've said. This shows you're genuinely paying attention and care about what they have to say, and invites them to clarify or keep going. Really, just try to find things in what others say that you can agree with in general and you'll likely be in a pretty good spot.