I have always been an introvert and reactive person. I rarely
approach people first and keep to myself when it comes to strangers. That
becomes the factor which makes it hard for me to open up to strangers. This
results in a longer period of time required for me to warm up to someone and
communication becomes a challenge when I work with people I am unfamiliar with.
I will tend to reply people instead of initiating a conversation and will reply
in a manner that can be interpreted that I want to end the conversation or that
I am not willing to talk with the other party.
However, when it comes to people I am close to and am
comfortable with, I have two conflicting sides in terms of communication. The first
is my introvert self, where I still do keep to myself and have time to myself
even in the company of friends. This is bad as I am not being considerate of
their presence. The second is my desire to speak my thoughts. This has two
sides to it, where it is a good thing as I interact with people and voice my opinions,
engaging people and having wonderful conversations. On the other hand, I want
to be heard and this is the same for the majority. This is a problem as there
has to be listeners for someone to be heard but there are rarely people who
wants to hear. When I came to realize this, I began to control myself when I
want to speak but instead be a listening ear to others so as to have meaningful
conversations.
There are definitely many other factors in communication and
it is a learning journey to discover the different interactions among people.
