Tag: conversation
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Talking About the Weather to Gain Trust
When I think back on the things that I believed as a self-assured young twenty-something, one of the more glaringly dumb ideas that comes to mind was my distaste for “small talk.” I even wrote an essay on this site pretty clearly (and aggressively) elaborating my reasons. Surely, there was some merit to it — even […]
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Why You Must Let People Check Out From Conversations
Sometimes in a conversation, especially a sensitive or heated one, you can tell you’ve hit a brick wall. When you recognize that, it is essential that you allow your conversational partner to check out of the conversation. If you don’t, it’s virtually guaranteed that something far worse than a lack of closure will be the […]
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“They’re invariably nice and interesting if you actually give a shit and try”
Please excuse the profanity of the title, but it’s one of those things that’s stated so simply and undeniably by someone else that I’d be a jerk if I changed it solely for the sake of propriety. Jesse Thorn penned the tweet quoted in this title over three years ago, and it still sticks in my […]
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Meandering Thoughts about How to Encounter the World
One of the things about knowing the ultimate question is that you may ask it everywhere. And in asking it everywhere you run the risk of becoming an insolent grade-schooler new in the knowledge that they can ask the question “Why?” of anything. This gives rise to the risk that you use it to endlessly […]
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Let’s Talk About Extraterrestrials
I’ve tried this technique a few times and while the results aren’t superb, they’re good enough to share. So to explain: I like to talk about a rather narrow range of topics, and none of them are comfortable conversation topics for most company. It’s lamentable but true that most people don’t eagerly desire to talk […]
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The Internet’s Role in my Conversation Aversion
I have an uncommon aversion to talking to most people I meet. It is powered by the twin engines of my disinterest in the public contents of their brain, and my inability to get the things that might interest me out of them in a way that doesn’t make either of us uncomfortable. It leads […]