Most of what I do can be classified as "work".
(In spite of the stereotype, I'm always surprised to see how few genuine "introverted coders" there actually are in the industry and how unsympathetic the rest are.)
It's OK if you don't want to spend the time to explain the nuance of your personal existence, but do understand that there is nuance in everyones existence. Expecting that the other person you are talking to "won't get it" is just blatant egotism.
Taking time to express what's important to you, and why, can be a very constructive thing for those who want to listen. The OP advocates empathy, and this is where it comes from. In my personal pursuit of empathy, I've had to filter out responses from people like you, and try to see beyond the untruthful statements in an attempt to understand what they are really saying. Shyness is one thing, but a pattern of lies and deceit are indicative of fundamental imbalance.
If you're having a hard time expressing why it's important to you, consider introspection; is it really important to you? If you don't come away from a day, or week, or weekend with something to tout when prompted, I dare say "you're doing it wrong".
I'm certainly not saying that I have something to be proud of every day, but that I'm honest with myself when I don't, and will express to others that I likely accomplished less than them in a given period. No lies necessary, and the other humans around you are given an opportunity to see your similarities, instead of some false iron gate of awesomeness.
Or if I am bustling with joy because the wife and I managed to sneak in an evening of kinky sex between bringing the kids to bed and work on monday. THAT's what I am thinking about and THAT's not what I want to tell you. So I invent some stupid story just so you are satisfied.
It's OK if colleagues which I know well and with whom I have a kind of bond ask things like that. But not as a conversation starter or to create such a bond.
And the list of people who cannot stand questions like that goes on: those with depression for whom every weekend is just a period of grayness, those with social anxiety...
Inventing a story, rather than truthfully explaining that you "enjoyed spending time with your wife and daughters" sounds sick to me.
You have a bond with everyone else already: we are humans. There is no prerequisite.
As someone who identifies with both depression/anxiety and positivity toward my accomplishments, in addition to a definite introversion, I reiterate my last paragraph from above: stop lying to yourself and others. If you had a simple weekend, where is the shame in admitting it?
If it was bad enough that you can't admit it, use that to fuel your development instead of pacifying it.
But now I try to be as open as is practically reasonable about my interests and hobbies. You'd be surprised how receptive some people can be. And those who react negatively are filtering themselves out of further interaction.
Not all people are looking for their own words echoed back to them. Like the OP who suggested this advice in the beginning, some people are really interested in seeing things from different viewpoints.
I don't know exactly why the other commenter said "you must be fun at parties," but I'd imagine it's because the parent commenter deflected from talking about things he actually wanted to talk about. Being fun doesn't have much to do with the content of what you talk about. It has more to do with you showing genuine interest and excitement for the things you do. If you don't like watching movies or playing video games, then it's very difficult to have a fun conversation about those things. CiPHPerCoder listed four things he enjoys doing over his weekends. Those topics are definitely not mainstream, but they do overlap with my interests. I would love to have a conversation about those things with him because it also adds to the variety of conversations I get to have.
Sorry, would have responded sooner but HN's rate-limits kicked in.
> If you don't like watching movies or playing video games, then it's very difficult to have a fun conversation about those things.
I do enjoy those activities, but I accepted a lot of responsibility (especially with making secure PHP code-- a feat some infosec folks claim is inherently impossible) and intend to finish what I started. That means missing out on a lot of great movies (Warcraft, Zootopia) and video games (OverWatch) that my friends are all able to enjoy.
Ultimately, I believe the work I'm doing today will make a difference tomorrow. Whether I'll be able to capture any of that value for myself remains to be seen.
Well, the only time you'll get that out of me is when I'm angry.
Most of my weekends involve:
* Reading research papers
* Reviewing other peoples' source code
* Reporting security vulnerabilities to open source projects (usually with a patch)
* Improving these projects: https://github.com/paragonie
I never have any time to watch movies, play video games, or engage in creative hobbies.
You've probably had some bad experiences, but you'd be surprised to know many people are not out there to get you for being different.
Hmmm. Sounds to me like your profession, your hobby, and your passion are all aligned. I hope you know how rare and wonderful that is!
If all you do is work work then I think you should probbably re-adjust a bit on the weekends or you'll narrow focus too or you're just working too hard. If you're doing side projects, I'm an engineer too, I LOVE to hear about that stuff. It's why I read hackaday and hacker news.
But if it's you trying to train it, the onus is on you to make it not awkward. Because everybody do default to this conversation.
Another tactic is to say "not much, what about you?" People love talking about themselves.
Isn't that the problem? Weekends are for resting, or doing whatever you want to do, which doesn't have to be work.
But if someone complains they have too much work over the weekend.... well they should do less work then. Use the time for what it is designed for!
I see people doing all of that every weekend in my suburb. Definitely not something you should shy away from sharing.
What do I mean? The person answering probably wonders whether his weekend adventures will compare favorably with yours. "I went to Tahoe!" "I caught a pop fly ball in Candlestick Park!" "I stayed home and binge-watched Gilligans Island." "Loser!"
Asking about the future is less competitive. Answers can range from "I'm going over to Sand Hill Road to get my investors to sign off on my IPO papers" to "StoopidCo sends this corrupt XML feed...I have to figure out how to ingest it" to "I'm going home sick, I feel terrible." In each case the answer is about the person speaking, not about you the questioner.
Do you see the difference? It's really important.
You really see the effects in the tech industry, as many of us were drawn to this line of work when we were undersocialized introverts in our teens and 20's. I know I was. I really resented social pressure in all forms, and was always pissed off that everyone else didn't see me for the genius that I thought I was at that age (which I was not, of course, but that belief was the only thing that got me out of bed some mornings). I loved the idea of a job where all that mattered were my technical skills, and never had to interact with other people, not realizing that any engineering job worth having would not fall into this category, if such jobs even existed.
I frequently see people get angry in forums when they think people are arguing with them based on the tone or wording of what they said rather than the content of their post. I frequently see people make comments in forums along the lines of, "99.9% of humanity is just too freaking sensitive and I refuse to change myself to adapt to them." More topically, you will occasionally see politicians or other public figures brush off outrage against some mind-numbingly hateful or stupid remark with excuses like, "I don't have time for political correctness", as if their lack of PC-approved verbiage was the reason people got angry. All of these things are indicators of people who not only don't have empathy but don't even realize what it is. They think empathy is like sympathy, or some other warm and fuzzy lets-share-our-feelings thing that they don't think they need to understand.
But really empathy is just the ability to have at least a shred of intuition for how things look from other people's perspectives. I think of it more as a neurological function than anything else, another high level input that our brains synthesize for us from lots of low level activity that we're not aware of, not unlike sight or hearing. It's a prerequisite for effectively communicating things to other people, and it becomes even more important when the people you are communicating with are predisposed to disagree with whatever you're saying. It's not schmoozing, it's not knowing how to sugar-coat what you say so as to not offend people (although that's often a pleasant side-effect in touchy situations!), it has nothing to do with political correctness, it's not even a social skill- it's literally just having the tiniest sense of how you come across to other people so you can communicate as effectively as possible. It also makes it much, much easier to design software that actually solves problems for other people, and to arrive at the best possible compromises in personal and business dealings. It also will aid in your awareness of problems that might not matter to you, but matter a lot to the people whose problems you want to solve.
The ability to walk in somebody else's shoes for a while makes you a better developer. Why?
* You acquire the habit of imagining what it's like to use the stuff you develop.
* You have a feel for the daily experience of your colleagues, suppliers, executives and other stakeholders.
These things give you the sort of spidey-sense that lets you function independently. They also give you the ability to enlist other people to get things done.
How can you learn empathy? Like any skill, it takes practice.
--Listen to strangers. The question "what are you doing this afternoon" asked at lunch will usually get an interesting response. Interject "wow" - like sounds to keep them talking.
--Seek opportunities to meet end-users of your stuff. (Ask sales people to take you along on calls if that's appropriate). Observe their work.
--Ask your executives and project managers questions like, "what keeps you awake at night?" And listen to the answers.
--Teach. It doesn't matter whether you teach short courses or get a night job as an adjunct professor at your local CoCo. Your interactions with students will help develop your empathy.
People love to talk about themselves. You can take advantage of that to practice empathy.