I’m an introvert and I like going to work to do my job and go home. I don’t understand people who use a job as a substitute for friendship or marriage. It’s a means to an end.
The sooner I do my duties, the longer my downtime is going to be, and I love having my downtime.
Many of my colleagues see me and immediately start asking questions I don’t want to answer, but neither do I want to hurt their feelings, I mostly want to be left alone. In the past this has been deconstructed as arrogance and people with fragile egos feel insulted by my indifference to them and that I prefer to work than to talk to them.
The world is made by extroverts. I have observed that people are eager to help you if you give them attention. I don’t get it, but neither I’m not going to change how extroverts think or feel.
If I give them the attention they need for as long as they need it I’m going to end up with daily headaches and neither my job nor theirs is going to be done.
I want to appear approachable, but keeping the info I feed them to a minimum. How do I do that?
What do you talk about to your coworkers?
What do you say to stop conversation organically? (meaning they don’t get offended).
Neither nor, generally. It doesn’t bother me personally, it might to some, as when they try to draw up what they know about you and they come up blank it may feel slightly uncomfortable, but they can get over it and usually they put that fault on themselves not asking the question.
When I tell my parents about a new coworker, they always ask “where are they from?”, and they expect me to either make a guess or have asked that question in the first week. I don’t usually ask someone that as it’s not pertinent information to me, unless I figure it out through context clues or when the topic goes to that after we are more familiar and share more.