I really feel that my emotional intelligence varies in different situations and with different people. Sometimes I will meet people for the first time and in one minute of finding something in common with each other we will just click and become best buddies, chattering away like nothing. But then there are other times that I have met people who I just can't seem to read at all or find something in common to talk about. I always struggle in those instances because it seems that no matter how hard I try to start up the conversation, there just isn't that spark of interest that keeps a normal conversation going so everything dries up into a long awkward silence. Thus over the years, as I have interacted with more and more people, I have tried to see why I am able to instantly connect with some people I meet in the most randomest of places, and why I can't do the same with other people and end up in awkward silences with them. In doing so, I realized that my level of emotional intelligence is actually lower than I had originally thought it to be as I had the most difficult time connecting to people who were most different from me or who seemed to perceive themselves as being very different from me.
I sometimes wonder if my low emotional intelligence was greatly influenced by childhood as a single child. As a child I spent a lot of time by myself at home and enjoyed reading books and playing games by myself because both my parent had to work full time when I was young. My parents are actually very conservative ( in fact now that I think about it I don't think I have ever seen them kiss in public, or much at home... I only see it in past pictures) and I guess you could almost say,they are more conservative, and shy in expressing their emotions. I think it is partially due to their own shy, more traditional personalities, and partially due to the more reserved nature of expressing one's emotions in Asian culture. Although they are not extremely verbally expressive about their emotions, I feel that they are still able to express them in other nonverbal ways through helping out each other with chores, errands, and small gifts throughout the year. So even though we don't say "I love you" all the time like many expressive families often do, we still have our own ways to express how much we care for each other.
However besides my family's influence on the way I interpret other's emotions, I have also realized that my low level of emotional intelligence could also be a result of my own difficulty in identifying my own emotions at times. Usually I can tell what emotion I am feeling, but sometimes it becomes difficult when I have a mix of two different feelings and I overlook one emotion or try to suppress a negative angry emotion when I am frustrated or out in a public setting. To prevent myself from expressing such counterproductive emotions through rash statements that could potentially damage my relationships with people (sudden death statements, etc.), I should practice the rational emotive approach by engaging in emotion work or self-talk.
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