For years I've been trying to have "good conversations" by thinking of interesting things to say or asking the "right" questions. Like I'd literally plan topics in my head before meeting people.
Recently I was at Target and the cashier mentioned she was tired from her shift. Instead of my usual polite nod I just said "damn yeah those closing shifts are brutal, you almost done?" Turns out she had 30 mins left and we ended up chatting about her manager being annoying and how she's been putting some money aside to eventually quit and travel. I mentioned I've also been saving up for a car so I totally get the grind, and somehow that just made the conversation flow even more naturally.
I think my problem is I've been treating conversations like performances instead of just… responding to what people actually say? Like I'm so focused on what I should say next that I'm not even listening to them.
4 comments
Dont be interesting, be interested.
When meeting someone, instead of making yourself seem like the most interesting person in the world, make THEM feel like the most interesting person in the world.
You’ve learned something smart and I think you’re gonna be really good at this new skill of listening and reacting.
What you were doing before wasn’t exactly right, but I think it is a skill too with its uses. It just shouldn’t be your main approach.
Planning conversations? Been there, done that, got the scars. It’s one of the things you try to do to support you, but ends up actually hurting you. You give up cognitive processing to hold your script in your head, then when they don’t say what they were supposed to your anxiety goes through the roof, your plan is wasted and you’re left floundering and have to get out of it with far less cognitive bandwidth than you’d have had if you hadn’t bothered. Then what do we do? Decide that our problem was that we didn’t plan *enough*!
Good conversationalists will tell you it’s easy because to them it is easy. They’re relaxed and they’re confident they can bat the conversational ball back over the net so the other person can return it easily. People are poor conversationalists because they have the baggage of anxiety, scripts, expectations and feeling the need to make the perfect return.