I’m an introvert and I like going to work to do my job and go home. I don’t understand people who use a job as a substitute for friendship or marriage. It’s a means to an end.
The sooner I do my duties, the longer my downtime is going to be, and I love having my downtime.
Many of my colleagues see me and immediately start asking questions I don’t want to answer, but neither do I want to hurt their feelings, I mostly want to be left alone. In the past this has been deconstructed as arrogance and people with fragile egos feel insulted by my indifference to them and that I prefer to work than to talk to them.
The world is made by extroverts. I have observed that people are eager to help you if you give them attention. I don’t get it, but neither I’m not going to change how extroverts think or feel.
If I give them the attention they need for as long as they need it I’m going to end up with daily headaches and neither my job nor theirs is going to be done.
I want to appear approachable, but keeping the info I feed them to a minimum. How do I do that?
What do you talk about to your coworkers?
What do you say to stop conversation organically? (meaning they don’t get offended).
if I don’t understand why people won’t leave me alone and keep pestering me and goading me onto talking to them, am I neurodivergent?
Am I neurodivergent if I think extroverts talk to each other because they feel that silence means something is wrong and they simply cannot phantom the idea that some people are different and react like most posters here: I hate people, I’m an asshole?
Am I neurodivergent if I ignore those that bother and bore me and talk to those that let me be? With these ones I open up because I feel they’re genuine. The problem is, these genuine humans are a small minority, whereas most people bore me. I don’t have time for people that bore me, but I can fake I tolerate them at work.
Not trying to get back at you, just my genuine questions.
Please don’t.
Then I’ll have to use strategies to feed them noise and give them attention so they calm down and let me work, as some posters suggested, till I find a better fitting job.
Is this a neurodivergent question? If my best is not good enough for my coworkers and manager, I need a new job.
Gotcha. Good advice. Patience and learning to deflect.