Comment by animal531
12 hours ago
I myself also tend to do that, but that is a behavior that is seen by the majority/"normal" people as non-social, unless if you already know them very well or if you are the one initiating the conversation.
Listening to people means that you actively listening and supporting them in their conversation, not bringing up your own angles to it. When you do that it is perceived by most people as you trying to one-up them in the conversation, instead of what you're actually doing.
In your listed example its fine because you started the interaction, but let's turn it around and say you walked into a conversation where people are talking about downtown in ABC. You want to participate and remember that there was a blizzard there in '96, so you bring that up.
Most people will see that as severe ADHD, why are we now talking about a blizzard from 1996? We were just talking about about how DEF is happening in ABC later this month?
Pivoting has the same problem, there are social cues that display your role in the group. Just walking into a conversation while trying to pivot it to your interests is in general quite rude etc.
> When you do that it is perceived by most people as you trying to one-up them in the conversation
This depends entirely on the content of your reply and how well-trained you are in social cues as well as other unspoken parts of conversation.
It's also not comprehensive advice. Of course you should first help the person on the other side of the conversation reach where they're intending to go in what they're saying.
My advice is more applicable to the "sequence points" of a conversation.
> Just walking into a conversation while trying to pivot it
Doing this would be foolish. You have to read the cues for when the time is right. You also need to develop the right conversational demeanor to pull it off. This necessitates practice.