Listen to me, dammit!

First up, if they talking over the top of you? Clear the throat, look them in the eye, raise your voice and talk over them. If they don’t back down, shut up or continue to raise their voice and not let you say your piece, chances are they are genuinely rude shitheads who NEVER will. You don’t socialise with these people, you avoid them. If you’re not in a position to do so, you tolerate them as best you can. Remind yourself you are NOT one of these people, because you’ve been patiently waiting your turn to speak, and it is ok to release your frustration at inconsiderate individuals. Once they get the message, you probably won’t have to do it so often.

Listening is never an unfulfilling experience, especially when people divulge their secrets to you. If they’re not, and it’s just boring mundane crap that you couldn’t care about, change the subject, or better still, let them do the hard work for you and bring up something you’re more interested in. Then perhaps you can engage in a more meaningful two way conversation.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Hmm. I don’t think you’ll get any specific advice unless you post an example conversation. You say you’re getting a lot of generic advice. I’d like to know, what have you done with all this? Have you tried to put any of it into practice? What difference has it made? If it didn’t work, what else did you try?

Maybe the best thing to do would be to forget everything you’ve seen and heard about communication. Don’t set any goals or endpoints, don’t think about trying to relax: strike up a conversation, enjoy the moment because no matter how bad things get, they are only going to improve…

Afterwards, review it (and any past unsuccessful efforts at communication) as a learning experience. Ask yourself what went wrong, and what can I do to change? Make an honest appraisal of your mistakes. For example, how did I initiate conversation? Was the timing appropriate? Was my clothing outlandish and weird? What was the topic and how could I have led into it better? Was my fly undone? etc… If you can’t think of at least one thing you could’ve done differently, you are not trying hard enough and things won’t change. Learn from any successful encounters too: if you can do it once, you’ll know how to do it again because success breeds further success.

Remember, you can waste your natural creative energies on conjuring scary scenarios about what might happen if you try something new and unusual; or making excuses like there being an ‘unspoken agreement’ against you and how everyone else is simply incompatible. Alternatively, you can apply your creativity in more constructive endeavours, such as working out how best to accomplishing what you want to achieve.

There's nowhere I can't reach.