Basically, sometimes when I talk to peoples, they shutdown. For instance, this morning I was discussing with one of my professor (PhD) and he said that people (researchers) who where gathering data “on the field” where not real researchers and that to be a “real” researcher you need to spend your life at a table with pen & paper. I tried to demonstrate that his pov was wrong using the example of AI, but when I had finish my last sentence, he just sat down, looked into the void for 5min and then started to use is computer as if nothing had happen. But the thing is, this kind of things happen to me all the time, I talk to people, ask them stuff and they “break”. Is there a way to fix them ? How are you dealing with this kind of situations ?
Difficult to tell. Maybe you monologue too much? I mean I sometimes find myself in situations where people talk a lot. And some of them don’t even breathe in between sentences… So there is no chance to interject, or ask follow up questions or tell them to slow down or speed up. And at some point you’re just lost and you can’t change anything, so you just sit there and wait until it’s over… I’m not sure if this is the case here. But it’s usually a good idea to make a pause every now and then and look the other person in the eyes. See if they follow, are comfortable… Maybe phrase something as a question if you can’t tell… But I suppose there are more dynamics than just that. And reasons for someone to mentally disengage during a conversation. Best thing I found is to ask close friends who know you and aren’t afraid to tell the truth. They might know. Or do a professional course on presenting or talking. These courses sometimes are part of some curriculum. Or something like business coaching. I’ve had to do a brief presentation and got very direct feedback concerning the way I talk, take pauses, how easy it is to listen to me and what kind of weird things I do with my hands while speaking…