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I just had a conversation with one of the bosses at my workplace who is making a change to his software because of an issue I brought up. He was acting chummy with me because even though our past interactions have been formal and polite, the last time I spoke with him I had alcohol and we had more of a relaxed discussion. But today when I was speaking with him I did not have alcohol, so it was kind of awkward because he was acting chummy with me but I was nervous.
He went into detail about changes he made to his code and I could not respond. I couldn't think of things to say because my focus was on high-level strategy. Maintaining good relationships with colleagues is more important than the technical details being discussed, which is true, so my focus was on acting nice and polite and acting grateful he was doing this work I needed, instead of my focus being on the topic being discussed. The result is he talked about all these technical details but I couldn't think of things to say because I was too focused on the high level strategy.
I think alcohol works by obliterating your ability to think strategically. Then all that is left to think about are details. If I had alcohol I would be able to focus on the technical details he was discussing. Strategic thinking normally gets one ahead, but this is a case where focusing on strategy backfired, and I think it backfires for talking to girls too. To socialize you really have to be present, forsake high level or abstract thinking, and bring yourself down to the details that average people like to discuss.
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