Now, how do I fix this?

[elfs]

Oh, gods, this is so Omaha and me:

Your nerd has built an annoyingly efficient relevancy engine in his head. It's the end of the day and you and your nerd are hanging out on the couch. The TV is off. There isn't a computer anywhere nearby and you're giving your nerd the daily debrief. "Spent an hour at the post office trying to ship that package to your mom, and then I went down to that bistro -- you know -- the one next the flower shop, and it's closed. Can you believe that?"

And your nerd says, "Cool".

Cool? What's cool? The business closing? The package? How is any of it cool? None of it's cool. Actually, all of it might be cool, but your nerd doesn't believe any of what you're saying is relevant. This is what he heard, "Spent an hour at the post office blah blah blah..."

You can be rightfully pissed off by this behavior -- it's simply rude -- but seriously, I'm trying to help here. Your nerd's insatiable quest for information and The High has tweaked his brain in an interesting way. For any given piece of incoming information, your nerd is making a lightning fast assessment: relevant or not relevant? Relevance means that the incoming information fits into the system of things your nerd currently cares about. Expect active involvement from your nerd when you trip the relevance flag. If you trip the irrelevance flag, look for verbal punctuation announcing his judgment of irrelevance. It's the word your nerd says when he's not listening and it's always the same. My word is "Cool", and when you hear "Cool", I'm not listening.

Information that your nerd is exposed to when the irrelevance flag is waving is forgotten almost immediately. I mean it. Next time you hear "Cool", I want you to ask, "What'd I just say?" That awkward grin on your nerd's face is the first step in getting him to acknowledge that he's the problem in this particular conversation.

Comments

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

I find the "daily debrief" trivial too, but it's how alot of people connect. And you need that daily renewal of the connection, especially when you spend so much of the day apart.

How to fix it? Not sure. My eyes glaze over sometimes when the housemates go on, but at the same time it can be amusing to hear their stories of the day. But I can definitely see how making sure you've got your nerd's attention first (and waiting for him/her to switch gears) could be a big help. I know I wouldn't be offended if someone needed to switch gears in order to focus on what I had to say. You're more likely to get whatever you need from the exchange that way.

A friend of mine has some interesting things he does to work on connecting with the people in his life. He makes a note of some of the things they are interested in and, as he goes through the day, he makes mental notes of things and "tags" them with a name or names of which person would be interested in the subject. Thus he doesn't dominate conversations with the things that interest only him and he has something to contribute that he's relatively sure will be well received. Sometimes he misses the mark, but the fact that he makes the effort tells us he cares about us. So I guess what I'm saying here is that another solution could be to try to engage more in the things that interest your SO and share in them. And hopefully your SO will appreciate the effort and understand it for the return of that willingness to connect.