Thinking and Speaking

[Malcontent]

I've read that Introverts think before speaking, and Extraverts think out loud.
I'm a weird middle-way maybe...

I think before speaking because I am rather shy and I don't want to say stupid or impulsive words, but also I've noticed that I speak better and I have a very good eloquence when I think out loud and freely. Because often my own thought create a sort of confusion in my mind before speaking.

Do you think this is strange??!! Could this mean that I am more intorverted or extraverted or nothing in particular?

Thanks.

 

[Katsuni]

I definately think out loud, I've had situations where people just marvel at me and have been directly told that listening to me is like seeing absolute pure concious thought with no division between the thought and the words themselves.

Now my mind thinks faster than I can speak however, and as such, this often leads to loosing track of whot I was saying. My brain doesn't handle speech very well, written forms are far more natural to me. I type faster than I speak, and can multitask a little better while writing, if not much. Trying to convert thought into expression is a complicated task for some reason, probably because there's so much thought going on, multiple layers at a time, that it's impossible to properly document all of it at the same instant. As long as I don't have to actually express whot I'm thinking at that moment, I can multitask an ungodly number of things at once, as soon as I have to write or speak my mind, then it takes my entire attention to do so and even then I can't accurately perform the task.


In yeur own case? I'd never heard of this particular division in thought stated in such a manner before, so I can only relate to my own experiences as an extrovert, in which case it seems to hold up to whot yeu're claiming. Past that, I can't really say with any accuracy. Best I can do is provide myself as an example and let that aide yeu in yeur attempt to understand yeurself.

 

[Ism]

I do the same thing, so it's not very strange. I think it depends on your level of comfortability with the people you're with.

When I'm around a larger group of people, I go neurotic in my head and try and determine what I'll say so I don't look silly, like you said.

When I'm with around people I'm comfortable with, however, I just throw out what's in my head and work it out outloud. The same thing sometimes happens when I'm alone. As I was walking around the neighborhood, I pretty much solved a problem I was trying to figure out by saying it out loud, with one thought coming after the next.

 

[rainoneventide]

Yeah, when I'm comfortable with people I'm a lot less harder on myself. Otherwise... it's like my brain just goes blank when I'm around people I'm not comfortable with, which is a lot of people.

 

[Asterion]

In this case it's likely that people experience both, but prefer one trait over the other. When I'm comfortable, I'll do exactly the same sorts of things as the above have mentioned. When uncomfortable, for example saying something that could make me look like a freak in front of at least twenty people -damn right I'm going to keep thinking for a little while. I have found that I really have to speak out problems, concepts, ideas (though I can't have it spoken to me, my listening skills are terrible) in order to fully process them and explore all the implications involved. If I have to think something through, I get distracted very quickly. I tend to ask quite a lot of questions, without necessarily needing anyone to actually reply. I do this with my ISTJ buddy all the time, he doesn't say much, yet we end up covering a wide variety of topics and work out how things work etc.

 

[Walking Tourist]

I think out loud. I like the brainstorming approach although, if I'm tired, it's more like the babble approach.

 

[thisGuy]

no i dont think its strange. i would call you a no so confident extravert

 

[wren]

what prompts me to speak out loud without forethought is my lack of practice speaking with others in an outright fashion. it ebbs and flows, my akwardness speaking. if i try to express all my thoughts to a real human, that made sense when they were galavanting around in my head, they come out awfully. but when i hear my words i'm more socially prepared to correct whatever it was i said i may not have liked, thus making me seem like a person who speaks first then considers what she says.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

I've noticed that if I say the first thing that comes to mind I'm more likely to make little semantic mistakes and muddle a perfectly good sentence up. People usually "correct" this and it's aggravating.

 

[wren]

personally i feel noone would really want to hear what is on my mind so i am left trying to convince them what i think is important while realizing they don't and in the mean time coming up with something socially appropriate (multitasking is my middle name) and then that can come out muddled. makes me feel indecisive and i don't like that.