Do you tend to Match people or do they Match you? (loving, family)
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By "Match" I'm referring to mimicking, modeling and/or following the lead of others during any interaction, like a conversation. And to be clear I'm interested in your natural behavior, not artificial attempts to model like NLP.
So when talking to someone do you find your tone, speech patterns, body language, even personality to some extent 'adjusts' to match the other person. Or do they typically follow your lead and match you?
For me I find that during any initial interaction with someone I tend to match them very noticeably. If they speak fast, I speak fast. If they're happy, I'm happy. As you might imagine this can lead to some very volatile interactions with anyone displaying strong emotions as I will almost always reflect those emotions back at them. If they escalate rather than defuse the rising tide of emotions look out! We'll either end up exhausted but loving each other, or absolutely hating each others guts. Thankfully it's usually much more subdued than that.
Funny you should ask.
I recently noticed that I tend to accomodate other people at first. As we get to know each other, we both become ourselves. But, as the relationship grows, my friends tend to become more like me. A couple of them have actually mentioned it.
I don't know if I mimic so much but sometimes in new places for awhile I will pick up local accents and its very annoying because I can hear myself talking and its such a weird thing to do that makes me look stupid but unless I try really hard I can't stop. Eventually i will revert back to my own speech.
Hm, curiously, DH and our friends are people with strong personalities so we don't use to follow each other.
Thanks for adding that, I was thinking that might be a possibility too, but assumed too strong personalities meeting would be less common. I guess not!
Funny you should ask.
I recently noticed that I tend to accomodate other people at first. As we get to know each other, we both become ourselves. But, as the relationship grows, my friends tend to become more like me. A couple of them have actually mentioned it.
I sometimes wonder about that myself. I know that over time my mimicking becomes less noticeable but I'm not sure if it's because I fall into familiar patterns with them, or because my personality is influencing the relationship more than theirs. I find it fascinating that your friends have actually mentioned that over time they become more like you, that's really cool! Thanks for sharing.
I don't know if I mimic so much but sometimes in new places for awhile I will pick up local accents and its very annoying because I can hear myself talking and its such a weird thing to do that makes me look stupid but unless I try really hard I can't stop. Eventually i will revert back to my own speech.
Have other people actually commented on it, or do you just think you look dumb when you do that? Hey, look on the bright side, if you learn another language you'll probably find it easy to take on a more natural accent!
I don't know if I mimic so much but sometimes in new places for awhile I will pick up local accents and its very annoying because I can hear myself talking and its such a weird thing to do that makes me look stupid but unless I try really hard I can't stop. Eventually i will revert back to my own speech.
If I spend much time in NC or ME I pick up those accents for a period of time until I get home and start talking normally.
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