• Rx_Hawk [he/him]
    ·
    7 months ago

    Damn I’m jealous of people who can publicly speak well. I basically blackout, forget any preparation, and ramble. To me it’s like if everyone is paying attention to you, you better have something really important to say and you better say it well. I cannot handle that kind of social pressure

    • charlie
      ·
      7 months ago

      My weird quirk is that I absolutely love presenting, especially lecturing or teaching. But as soon as I see one person not paying attention I get totally taken out of it, and would rather be doing anything else. Like, I don’t think it’s rude, and I don’t take it personally, but it pulls me out of my flow state and kind of bums me out for the rest of the day.

      • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]
        ·
        7 months ago

        That's why one of the tricks they teach you about public speaking is picking one person and talking to them specifically. It helps if the person is engaged, but it kind of diffused the need to control a whole crowd.

        • Tabitha ☢️[she/her]
          ·
          7 months ago

          oh no, now I can't listen to speeches, what if I'm the person the speaker chooses to specifically talk at??? stalin-stressed

        • charlie
          ·
          7 months ago

          I think that trick is more to overcome the anxiety of speaking to a group. I’m constantly scanning the group to get an idea of what level engagement is at, and if I’m losing people or if my efforts to be at least a little more entertaining are working or I need to try something else.

          It’s definitely not a control or anxiety thing, being ignored is a trigger probably from some childhood shit where I would info dump my latest interest and get ignored by my parents. Giving a training to people just to be ignored feels the exact same, even though rationally I know it isn’t.

          • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]
            ·
            7 months ago

            I see, yeah. It sounds like you're a very competent speaker already, so I believe you can work on that issue! (hope this doesn't come off as condescending or anything, I'm tired and trying to be positive)

            • charlie
              ·
              7 months ago

              Not at all, thank you!

              It’s such a weird thing, I have a hard time explaining it without just sounding like I’m an asshole, so most advice is like, don’t be an asshole.

              I know it’s a me problem, if it ever gets bad I just take a break and refocus, and most of the time even a quick ten minutes gets everyone else reset and focusing again too. If there’s a really egregious individual I try and one on one with them during the break and ask what’s up, but ironically I have terrible one on one social anxiety.

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
      ·
      7 months ago

      I get the blackout part, I've played in numerous bands and can remember setting up for and breaking down live sets but can't recall any performances for the life of me, even ones I was sober enough to do so. Any time I've seen videos of sets I've played it's like other people do it. I don't fuck up or anything, I just enter a fugue state. Same happens for me with public speaking, I think doing school in French and doing a lot of presentations and stuff in a foreign language made me very relaxed when doing the same in English, cause if there's one thing I'm really confident with, it's the English language. I still feel like a bumbling doofus but once again, if I play a recording or whatever, I sound great, I'll be mad at myself for thinking of better ways to say stuff after, like how you only think of a good comeback hours after the insult, but as far as form goes it's fine. Ya might be better than you think