Hey everyone!

Long time no post… The Cinny client for Matrix no longer functions even after updating, so I have lost access to the chat.

Anyways, I have been thinking a lot lately about the amount of awkward silences I’ve run into with others. It feels like some people are significantly easier to hold a conversation with, as they themselves are invested just as I am in our topics and dialogue. However, it almost feels like the other person is attempting a strange power dynamic with purposeful silences, staring, or otherwise conversations going downhill.

I’m not trying to be overly dramatic or to blame others, I just want to be as pleasant as possible for both the other person and myself. After all, good conversation can be wonderful!

Hoping to start a discussion with this nebulous afterthought and maybe get some ideas going for conversation skills and building social intuition!

  • gronjo45@lemm.eeOP
    0·
    10 months ago

    This is great advice! I’ll try to implement it over the next couple of times I’m chatting with these same people. Oftentimes, I find it hard to gauge what the other person might “want” to talk about. This can be challenging with people who are more shy or not necessarily big conversationalists from what I’ve experienced.

    My follow-up would be… How do you engage in a dialogue? Do you adhere to any principles as to how long you are talking, the uniqueness of words that you use to describe your ideas…? How do you balance what you’re going to say with active listening? Because sometimes I feel like I attentively listen TOO much, and I’m just there nodding and dispensing a digitized voice-line of “wow!” “awesome” “fun” “cool” “Oh that’s interesting” and so forth…

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
      2·
      10 months ago

      Because sometimes I feel like I attentively listen TOO much, and I’m just there nodding and dispensing a digitized voice-line of “wow!” “awesome” “fun” “cool” “Oh that’s interesting” and so forth…

      That’s fine, but I assume you mean that you’re not sure when to say something more substantive than a simple affirmation that you’re following along. A couple of other tips I’ve picked up that help with this:

      • When someone stops talking, that usually means it’s your turn to talk.
      • The default way to keep a conversation going (assuming you’ve been listening attentively) is to ask something prompted by something the person emphasized when they were talking. If nothing seemed emphasized, you can use the last thing the person said as a default, or else whichever part of what they said gave you an idea of something to say.

      So for example if they are talking about their plans for the weekend and mention that on Saturday they are visiting their parents and on Sunday they are going to the beach, you have two prompts to build on there. You could ask “where do your parents live?”, “How often do you visit them?”, “which beach are you going to?”, etc.

      Generally try to ask open ended questions rather than yes/no questions. And remember my first tips that the question you ask is also a way of conveying where you want the conversation to go. So if you don’t want to talk about your own parents, maybe it’s better to ask about the beach. And don’t be afraid to say “me too” and then if they say something like “really?” then it’s your turn to talk for a bit as you relate the thing you have in common with them.

      Oftentimes, I find it hard to gauge what the other person might “want” to talk about. This can be challenging with people who are more shy or not necessarily big conversationalists from what I’ve experienced.

      This is a bit trickier. It depends a lot on the context of why you’re talking to them. It’s helpful to have a roster of icebreaker questions that are socially acceptable to ask as the beginning of a conversation. Stuff like “what do you do for work?”, “What do you like to do for fun?”, etc.