Let’s say that you need to improve your skills at
conversation.
It’s easy to say that those who are shy, introverted,
or inhibited need most to improve such skills, but, in truth, we should all be
working at improving our conversational skills.
Whatever the reason or the cause, being conversationally
challenged will make life much more difficult. In business or in romance, at
the party or at dinner, you will find your options limited if you do not know
how to engage other human beings in conversation.
Will therapy help? If your therapist converses with you, it
might help you.
But, if your therapist, by some quirk of his professional
training, has been taught not to converse with you, he will drive you further
into yourself, causing your conversational muscle to atrophy.
Will it help to attend a seminar on how to pick up girls? If
you are a guy, it might. But, then again, it might not.
The seminar will afford you the opportunity to practice your
conversational skills in a controlled environment. But it will also give you
the misimpression that you cannot approach a comely young lady unless you are armed with a brilliant line and a
rapier-like repartee.
This works for some of the people some of the time, but it
will not work for very many people for very much of the time.
When you come right down to it, the
only way to develop your conversational skills is by conversing.
If you really want to get better at conversing, sit down
with a living breathing human being and talk. There’s no substitute for face-to-face
encounters. There is no shortcut around it.
Of course, it’s easier said than done. If you are
conversationally challenged you will discover, once you try to converse with
another sentient human, that you become anxious, shy, awkward, withdrawn, and tongue-tied.
And you will think to yourself that it was better to avoid conversation
than to listen to foolish advice to jump into the deep end of the pool when
you barely know how to stay afloat.
I grant that if you are conversationally challenged, you are
entering unfamiliar territory. You do not know the rules of the game, and even
if you do, you have no experience playing it. You are probably going to make a
fool of yourself. You might even feel like you’re drowning.
Unfortunately, you might then say to yourself that you must
be suffering from a severe emotional disturbance. You might conclude that you
need to get out of the game and into your mind, the better to discover why you
have this problem.
Surely, you suffer from a psychological impediment, something
from your childhood that you have not dealt with. If only you can reprocess it,
you will emerge from your therapeutic chrysalis, ready to fly off to meet the
world.
Of course, if you have spent years in therapy learning how
not to converse your first forays will be more awkward than need-be. If you
have learned how to talk to walls your new interlocutors will get the feeling
that they do not count for very much.
You might not drown, but you will surely crash.
John Hawkins wrote an interesting column the other day
explaining how he had overcome his own shyness and introversion. He did not see
it as a psychological impediment but as a bad habit. He did not try to overcome
it with insight, but by engaging people in conversation.
When you start out on this road you are going to act
strangely. You are not going to be very polished.
That means only one thing: that you need to keep at it. The
more you do it the easier it becomes. The more you avoid conversation that more
difficult it will seem.
How do you initiate conversation with a stranger at a
reception or a party or a bar or even on the supermarket checkout line? Hawkins
offers some advice that feels too easy to be true, but still, it works.
When you engage another person in a conversation, Hawkins
says, you do not need to sally forth with a killer opening gambit.
“Hello” will do just fine.
After saying Hello, Hawkins recommends that you introduce
yourself by pronouncing your full name and by stating a truth, namely, that
the two of you have never met.
Thereby you have offered something of yourself and
recognized that the two of you have something in common.
It sounds more honest than to walk up to a woman and state
that you know you met her somewhere, only you have forgotten where.
You might think that that is clever and cool, but you
have just told her that she is forgettable. It’s not going to win you too many
points.
But, after Hello, your name, and the fact that you have
never met, then what?
Try offering a comment about the weather, about the
atmosphere in the bar, about the food at the party, or about the show you both saw.
You can and should begin a conversation by commenting about something that the
two of you are known to have in common.
Having a conversation is about finding common ground, not disputing climate change.
Remember this: you are trying to engage in a conversation,
not to make a point. You should not be contentious or tendentious. Save your
wit for a time when you know the other person reasonably well. One person’s wit
is another’s insult.
In other words you are extending an open hand. You are not
slapping the other person and you are not grabbing him or her. Either one of
those will end the conversation before it starts. If it doesn't it should.
Conversation is about comity and amity, not about argument
and disagreement. People who argue are disagreeable.
Then what? Hawkins suggests that you pay rapt attention and show
that you are listening by asking questions.
We tend to like people who find us fascinating. Focusing
entirely on the other person, blocking out the rest of the world, is the key to
making yourself attractive and engaging.
People who spend fortunes perfecting their appearance
and are so distracted by worrying about how they look often fail to show that they are fascinated by what they are hearing. It's a big mistake.
Ask questions that arise out of curiosity and interest. Do
not end up sounding like the Grand Inquisitor. You are not in the business of
asking the other person to reveal deep secrets or intimate personal details.
After all, you just met him or her.
Your questions might feel silly or superficial, but if you
have just met the person you have no business prying.
The next step involves reciprocity. When it comes to
conversation, reciprocity is the name of the game.
If you want to measure and control a conversation, if you
want to know how the game is being played, it is being played on the field of
reciprocal disclosure.
The truest measure of conversational engagement is the
reciprocal and equal exchange of thoughts, feelings, and information.
If she tells you about her pet snail, you are obliged, by
the laws of reciprocity, to share information about whatever pet you had when
you were a child.
If he mentions his brother or sister, you are obliged to
reveal the fact that you have or do not have siblings.
You need not share the fact that your half-brother is
currently doing time for grand larceny, but you do need to mention that he
exists.
If he mentions what his brother does for a living, you still
do not need to mention that your brother is in prison, but you do need to say
something to the effect that he’s been having a hard time lately. Better say that he is having a hard time than
to say that he is doing hard time.
If one person discloses too much and the other person does
not disclose enough the conversation will fade and the connection will be missed.
This also means that if you want to advance the conversation
and to get closer to the other person, and you want to know something about him
or her, don’t ask a direct question, reveal something equal and opposite about
yourself.
If your interlocutor volunteers new information, well and
good. If he or she does not, that means that you have overstepped and should
beat a hasty retreat.
Shyness is a trait, and it may have to do with neurological sensitivity, or a kind of inability to shut out what isn't useful from what is, but research shows that pretty much everyone who gets into group therapy, either for social awareness or for addiction, reports less shyness as one result. So it seems that actually talking is an experience that results in more talking.
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