Conversation

I like to think that I’ve taught myself to become a better conversationalist. I know that makes me sounds rather dull; but I do try not to think about it as a set of procedures or an algorithm, but rather as a general attitude that can make you more fun to hang out with.

Famously, the golden rule of conversation is to “ask people about themselves and let them talk”. This is true; with the caveat that you need to be interested in their answers. This means, essentially, that you need to cultivate an interest in all sorts of people, to open yourself up to conversations outside your immediate areas of interest. If you can’t make yourself care about someone else’s life, they’ll be aware of it. Luckily, people are fascinating - if you can’t see that, read some fiction!

Open-ended or ambiguous questions, of course, are infinitely better. “What is your favourite part of –” or “Do you think that –” are better than questions with specific answers (“do you like it?”), and “what do you do?” is better than “what line of work are you in?”

Another common idea is that you shouldn’t ask boring questions such as “where are you from” or “what job do you do”. I don’t agree with this bit of wisdom. To me, hitting someone you’ve just met with something like “what’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done?” or “are humans becoming obsolete?” is somewhat obnoxious. It’s a way of putting yourself in the centre, marking yourself as a Bold and Interesting Person who has no time for little minds. Some people find small talk reassuring, at least at the beginning, and there’s a reason why it’s a pretty common social lubricant. To me the goal of conversation is to find the other person’s comfort zone and interests, find what excites them, find some way that it intersects with your own interests, and build on that. Everyone is different: some people like to talk about hypotheticals, some people like talking about their jobs, some like debating current events, some like emotional discussions, and some people don’t like to talk at all, or don’t want to talk to you, and shouldn’t be pushed. A non-threatening opener is your gambit into finding which one it is.