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I also thought about this a lot. Some things about slow thinking are great. I truly believe that it helped me thrive as a software developer. But social intera

I also thought about this a lot. Some things about slow thinking are great. I truly believe that it helped me thrive as a software developer. But social interactions are awkward. I can't really come up with things to say easily and lots of times I can't respond in ways to keep the conversation going. Only after the fact I get lots of ideas of what I could have said. I'm truly impressed about others who can just come up with interesting or funny things to say on the spot. I'm a tad older, so I stopped caring about it and just accepted my slow thinking. But I'm sure that I also missed out on a lot of opportunities regarding friendships or work. I still think, that others perceive me as awkward or just not fun and it's hard to just ignore that. Funnily my wife is completely opposite to me and we have the greatest time.

noir_lord 1y ago
To an extent it’s a skill you can practice if not learn. By nature I’m a slow thinker but I can mode switch if I need to but it’s exhausting after a while in a weird way I put it down to working in the trades before switching to programming full time, some of the fastest funniest people you’ll ever meet are tradesmen on job sites (introversion doesn’t mean poor social skills after all though they get conflated). If you are generally happy as you are don’t sweat it, be a boring world if we where all the same.
ozgrakkurt 1y ago
I think this is not really a bad trait. If you think about it from the other person’s perspective, they really don’t expect you to make jokes or entertain them
- stronglikedan 1y ago
  > they really don’t expect you to make jokes or entertain them Oh, but they do, if you want to have future conversations with them. As a slow thinker with the same social issues as OP, trust me, they do. Nobody wants to keep talking to someone they consider boring, and first impressions are still the most important impressions.
  - ozgrakkurt 1y ago
    As someone who believed both versions of this in different parts of my life, I’m pretty convinced that it is a choice to believe in either one
Swizec 1y ago
> I'm truly impressed about others who can just come up with interesting or funny things to say on the spot. As Winston Churchill once said when asked “what are you doing” –> “Oh just preparing my off-the-cuff remarks for tomorrow” I’m one of those weirdos who does public speaking sometimes. Even 8 hour workshops. You cannot prepare for an 8 hour speaking engagement. Not really. But you can accumulate a plethora of anecdotes, metaphors, and remarks that you weave into the narrative or in response to questions. You can build frameworks that are similar to code. Prepared functions/coroutines/objects that you run in appropriate situations. Works pretty well especially in mentoring/teaching/consulting situations. This is also how comedians prep their sets. The key is that things you say are new to the audience, but not to you. It can be the same metaphor you’ve fine-tuned over dozens of interactions. And the person you’re talking to thinks “Wow that guy is so quick on his feet, how did he come up with that so fast!?” You can also spot this if you watch talks by popular presenters (Simon Sinek is a good example). You’ll notice the same 2 or 3 core stories getting polished and fine-tuned over years of talks and interviews.
- saghm 1y ago
  When I was super young, I used to think my dad (who everyone I met seemed to think was extremely funny) had a huge repitoire of hilarious stories, but after a few years I noticed him repeating them and realized he just had a few specific ones that he would re-use with new people, like you mentioned. As someone who tends to be pretty slow to learn how to navigate new social situations, it was eye-opening when I recognized this was something I could do. What's amusing to me at this point is that I'm still not sure he fully realizes that this is something he does sometimes, because he'll still sometimes try to whip out one of the stories when talking to me and then genuinely be surprised when I remind him of some very minor detail about it that he forgot to mention this time he told it.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    There’s a Father Brown story which has the extreme of that: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/g-k-chesterton/the-secret-of-father-brown/text/the-song-of-the-flying-fish https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/g-k-chesterton/the-secret-... But in general yes - have a few or tens of stories you’ve rehearsed through long use, and practice ways to segue to one of them. Once you get a handle for the few topics of small talk, it’s not terribly hard - and is a skill that can be taught and learned.
Kiboneu 1y ago
I also often don’t have timely responses. There are sometimes long pauses before my response or even mid-speech, during which I’m thinking about what’s said. But the delay is often interpreted as a cue for someone else to respond or change the subject, which often leads to not being able to say anything that i’ve spent so much glutamate to process. I used to say “one moment” every 5 seconds while I think, but that was distracting. Sometimes, I do this thing with my eyes jumping them around as if I’m reading a book; that gives people something to look at while they wait, like a spinner indicator.
- mat_b 1y ago
  There are body language cues that show you are thinking. Try looking up (like you're looking into your brain).
  - Kiboneu 1y ago
    Yeah. That does work. I do that sometimes, though my eyes start to hurt when I roll them up for that long. I also find it easier to do something with my eyes than to do nothing while thinking. That’s probably just me. In the future, I might want an led embedded in one of my temples, that will blink like a network switch port or hdd light that indicates brain activity.
    - conductr 1y ago
      Also filler text while you think is good to practice. “That’s actually a well informed question, what I’ve seen is….” Buys you 5 seconds if you can say it on autopilot and think while your mouth is moving
      - JSR_FDED 1y ago
        I worked with a guy who would always start with “to a first approximation…” After a while it started to grate on me because it came across as “here comes my poorly formed first thought”
efsavage 1y ago
I am also the slow-thinking dev married to a quick thinker, and it's a good pairing. I know couples where they're both quick thinkers and things are so mercurial it's hard to believe they're still together, but maybe the excitement keeps it going. I enjoy watching Harry Mack videos on YouTube where he freestyles and can work in something that happens like someone walking into the frame into literally the next line of his raps. This capability is so absolutely outside of the realm of possibility for my brain I almost feel like he's a different species.
djtango 1y ago
My boxing coach once described fighting as a conversation. I am inclined to agree. In boxing you don't have the luxury of taking your time to think otherwise you get punched in the face. Improving at conversation is like boxing - it can be reduced into structures and scenarios. Combinations and responses can be drilled in. Ultimately once the foundations are bedded in there is plenty of room for self expression and creativity. The funny thing about social interaction is that we all talk to each other but there are people who live breathe and hone the art whether formally or informally while plenty of us just stumble along doing just good enough...
HellDunkel 1y ago
I‘m very similar. I noticed that people who are very easy to speak to share one trait: they have no shame to tell you the same story multiple times. It bores the hell out of me every times. If i try to do it, i get bored as well.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
vim-guru 1y ago
I could have written these exact words. Marriage needs a certain balance you know ;)
carabiner 1y ago
You're pretty much hosed for any FAANG leetcode interviews, though. Unless you're a superstar performer otherwise.
Poomba 1y ago
>> I still think, that others perceive me as awkward or just not fun and it's hard to just ignore that. Most likely they don’t care as much as you think. They are probably thinking about what they should say next
conductr 1y ago
Due to this, career success is going to be highly dependent on chosen profession. Some professions are inherently more social and require heavy networking. Software and engineering as a whole, is a good profession for slow thinkers to excel. It can also be meritocratic so any personality quirks or pedigrees get normalized when ranking by performance.
- jonotime 1y ago
  For me is has been quite the opposite. Im a top performing senior/staff engineer. But always struggle to get through coding interviews.
  - conductr 1y ago
    I'm self taught programmer, I don't code professionally but feel confident that I can build any software related widget I ever dreamed up. That said, coding interview stuff I have seen is like gibberish and I don't see how it correlates to the day to day job of building software. Maybe some types of software (lower level systems stuff and such come to mind). It seems like everyone online discussing it feels about the same too. So honestly not sure if that's signal or noise for you, lol.
anthonypasq 1y ago
you can try getting into improv comedy to develop this sort of skill. I'm also generally a slow thinker, but i dont actually think we think slower, I think we have too high a barrier for what we allow ourselves to say. We're afraid of making a mistake or saying something stupid, but most people just blurt out the first thought that percolates from their subconscious.

noir_lord 1y ago

To an extent it’s a skill you can practice if not learn. By nature I’m a slow thinker but I can mode switch if I need to but it’s exhausting after a while in a weird way I put it down to working in the trades before switching to programming full time, some of the fastest funniest people you’ll ever meet are tradesmen on job sites (introversion doesn’t mean poor social skills after all though they get conflated). If you are generally happy as you are don’t sweat it, be a boring world if we where all the same.

ozgrakkurt 1y ago

I think this is not really a bad trait. If you think about it from the other person’s perspective, they really don’t expect you to make jokes or entertain them

stronglikedan 1y ago
> they really don’t expect you to make jokes or entertain them Oh, but they do, if you want to have future conversations with them. As a slow thinker with the same social issues as OP, trust me, they do. Nobody wants to keep talking to someone they consider boring, and first impressions are still the most important impressions.
- ozgrakkurt 1y ago
  As someone who believed both versions of this in different parts of my life, I’m pretty convinced that it is a choice to believe in either one

Swizec 1y ago

> I'm truly impressed about others who can just come up with interesting or funny things to say on the spot. As Winston Churchill once said when asked “what are you doing” –> “Oh just preparing my off-the-cuff remarks for tomorrow” I’m one of those weirdos who does public speaking sometimes. Even 8 hour workshops. You cannot prepare for an 8 hour speaking engagement. Not really. But you can accumulate a plethora of anecdotes, metaphors, and remarks that you weave into the narrative or in response to questions. You can build frameworks that are similar to code. Prepared functions/coroutines/objects that you run in appropriate situations. Works pretty well especially in mentoring/teaching/consulting situations. This is also how comedians prep their sets. The key is that things you say are new to the audience, but not to you. It can be the same metaphor you’ve fine-tuned over dozens of interactions. And the person you’re talking to thinks “Wow that guy is so quick on his feet, how did he come up with that so fast!?” You can also spot this if you watch talks by popular presenters (Simon Sinek is a good example). You’ll notice the same 2 or 3 core stories getting polished and fine-tuned over years of talks and interviews.

saghm 1y ago
When I was super young, I used to think my dad (who everyone I met seemed to think was extremely funny) had a huge repitoire of hilarious stories, but after a few years I noticed him repeating them and realized he just had a few specific ones that he would re-use with new people, like you mentioned. As someone who tends to be pretty slow to learn how to navigate new social situations, it was eye-opening when I recognized this was something I could do. What's amusing to me at this point is that I'm still not sure he fully realizes that this is something he does sometimes, because he'll still sometimes try to whip out one of the stories when talking to me and then genuinely be surprised when I remind him of some very minor detail about it that he forgot to mention this time he told it.
- bombcar 1y ago
  There’s a Father Brown story which has the extreme of that: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/g-k-chesterton/the-secret-of-father-brown/text/the-song-of-the-flying-fish https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/g-k-chesterton/the-secret-... But in general yes - have a few or tens of stories you’ve rehearsed through long use, and practice ways to segue to one of them. Once you get a handle for the few topics of small talk, it’s not terribly hard - and is a skill that can be taught and learned.

Kiboneu 1y ago

I also often don’t have timely responses. There are sometimes long pauses before my response or even mid-speech, during which I’m thinking about what’s said. But the delay is often interpreted as a cue for someone else to respond or change the subject, which often leads to not being able to say anything that i’ve spent so much glutamate to process. I used to say “one moment” every 5 seconds while I think, but that was distracting. Sometimes, I do this thing with my eyes jumping them around as if I’m reading a book; that gives people something to look at while they wait, like a spinner indicator.

mat_b 1y ago
There are body language cues that show you are thinking. Try looking up (like you're looking into your brain).
- Kiboneu 1y ago
  Yeah. That does work. I do that sometimes, though my eyes start to hurt when I roll them up for that long. I also find it easier to do something with my eyes than to do nothing while thinking. That’s probably just me. In the future, I might want an led embedded in one of my temples, that will blink like a network switch port or hdd light that indicates brain activity.
  - conductr 1y ago
    Also filler text while you think is good to practice. “That’s actually a well informed question, what I’ve seen is….” Buys you 5 seconds if you can say it on autopilot and think while your mouth is moving
    - JSR_FDED 1y ago
      I worked with a guy who would always start with “to a first approximation…” After a while it started to grate on me because it came across as “here comes my poorly formed first thought”

efsavage 1y ago

I am also the slow-thinking dev married to a quick thinker, and it's a good pairing. I know couples where they're both quick thinkers and things are so mercurial it's hard to believe they're still together, but maybe the excitement keeps it going. I enjoy watching Harry Mack videos on YouTube where he freestyles and can work in something that happens like someone walking into the frame into literally the next line of his raps. This capability is so absolutely outside of the realm of possibility for my brain I almost feel like he's a different species.

djtango 1y ago

My boxing coach once described fighting as a conversation. I am inclined to agree. In boxing you don't have the luxury of taking your time to think otherwise you get punched in the face. Improving at conversation is like boxing - it can be reduced into structures and scenarios. Combinations and responses can be drilled in. Ultimately once the foundations are bedded in there is plenty of room for self expression and creativity. The funny thing about social interaction is that we all talk to each other but there are people who live breathe and hone the art whether formally or informally while plenty of us just stumble along doing just good enough...

HellDunkel 1y ago

I‘m very similar. I noticed that people who are very easy to speak to share one trait: they have no shame to tell you the same story multiple times. It bores the hell out of me every times. If i try to do it, i get bored as well.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

vim-guru 1y ago

I could have written these exact words. Marriage needs a certain balance you know ;)

carabiner 1y ago

You're pretty much hosed for any FAANG leetcode interviews, though. Unless you're a superstar performer otherwise.

Poomba 1y ago

>> I still think, that others perceive me as awkward or just not fun and it's hard to just ignore that. Most likely they don’t care as much as you think. They are probably thinking about what they should say next

conductr 1y ago

Due to this, career success is going to be highly dependent on chosen profession. Some professions are inherently more social and require heavy networking. Software and engineering as a whole, is a good profession for slow thinkers to excel. It can also be meritocratic so any personality quirks or pedigrees get normalized when ranking by performance.

jonotime 1y ago
For me is has been quite the opposite. Im a top performing senior/staff engineer. But always struggle to get through coding interviews.
- conductr 1y ago
  I'm self taught programmer, I don't code professionally but feel confident that I can build any software related widget I ever dreamed up. That said, coding interview stuff I have seen is like gibberish and I don't see how it correlates to the day to day job of building software. Maybe some types of software (lower level systems stuff and such come to mind). It seems like everyone online discussing it feels about the same too. So honestly not sure if that's signal or noise for you, lol.

anthonypasq 1y ago

you can try getting into improv comedy to develop this sort of skill. I'm also generally a slow thinker, but i dont actually think we think slower, I think we have too high a barrier for what we allow ourselves to say. We're afraid of making a mistake or saying something stupid, but most people just blurt out the first thought that percolates from their subconscious.