[HN Gopher] Good Conversations Have Lots of Doorknobs ___________________________________________________________________ Good Conversations Have Lots of Doorknobs Author : worldvoyageur Score : 340 points Date : 2022-08-21 17:18 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (experimentalhistory.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (experimentalhistory.substack.com) | andreyk wrote: | Great article! I've personally been pretty self aware with how | often I "create doorknobs" in conversations, though I like to | think of it in terms of "passing the ball" in soccer or | basketball. If you do all the passing and never get the ball | passed to you, the "game" of conversation is no fun -and it | should be fun! | prashnts wrote: | A good read, thanks. I like the description of take/give sides | and it's well portrayed. I wondered if there's any take home | message here for salvaging a give-take conversation. | | I'd crudely deduct that being takers/givers in a conversation may | be a function of cultural, linguistic, social, and intellectual | dimensions coupled with personal, emotional, and ambient states a | person is in. | | As such there's really very little just one party can do to have | a better conversation flowing on their own. So apart from | affordance, I think participation seems to also be a key factor | and can be seen as "push or pull or slide" aspect of that | doorknob. | Etheryte wrote: | I wouldn't say the traits are universal, as in someone is | always a giver or someone is always a taker, but rather it | depends heavily on context. For example, I've noticed I'm | mostly a giver when I'm talking to my parents, because I'm very | interested in hearing what they have to say while they're still | around, whereas I'm often a taker around my friends. The answer | to your question then would be to be flexible and match your | conversation partner. If you find your partner to be a giver, | you too can try to give to meet them halfway, similarly for the | other option. | fishtoaster wrote: | For me, I grew up a Taker. I'm not sure if this was a cultural | thing (my parents are takers), a regional thing (western NY), | or a me-being-an-unaware-dork thing (I was). | | But now I find myself surrounded by Givers. I'm not sure if | this is a cultural thing (SF tech scene), a regional thing | (west coast), or a my-social-circle thing. | | So I had to learn to be a giver to make any friends. What's | interesting is that my _old_ friends are mostly Takers. I | imagine this was a selection bias: givers got bored of talking | to me quickly! I get together with some old friends from | college once or twice a year and every time it 's a bit jarring | for the first hour as I have to switch to all-take mode. | | Anyway, the point being that I think you can learn to switch, | and to blend between the two modes. In fact, I think being able | to do so is generally good and helpful. | flyaway123 wrote: | This provides a great mental model to build awareness / be more | sensitive for the social cues during a conversation. | | > _There is no known cure for egocentrism; the condition appears | to be congenital._ | | Which is why I can't see why this is suggested as an independent | issue that should simply be accepted, without additional | reference. The lack of doorknobs, if you will. | [deleted] | rwilson4 wrote: | Really interesting. I've always wished there was a formula to be | better at conversations. I've never been good at it! I've tried | to find books but the ones I've found come off as manipulative, | not as a cure for social awkwardness! Doorknobs are a great | mental model! | russellbeattie wrote: | I've recently learned that I have Avoidant Personality Disorder. | I spend most of a conversation looking for ways to end it quickly | before I make some sort of social faux pas that I'll obsess about | for the rest of my life. (I still replay moments from 30 years | ago in my head. Like I said, it's a disorder). The better a | conversation is going, the faster I want it to end. Any exit I | see, I take it. | tcgv wrote: | > We think people want to hear about exciting stuff we did | without them ("I went to Budapest!") when they actually are | happier talking about mundane stuff we did together ("Remember | when we got stuck in traffic driving to DC?") | | Gonna keep that in mind! | jstx1 wrote: | On the flip-side, "remember when we..." becomes very boring if | you're meeting someone that you aren't forming new memories | with. | gitgud wrote: | True, if someone in the conversation wasn't at that event, | it's very hard for them to care, unless there's a punchline | or its somehow actually related to them... | Aperocky wrote: | Personally, I want to hear about exciting stuff that my friend | did and tell them about the exciting stuff that happened to me | (though not much of that has happened recently.. can just stay | relatively quiet). | takanori wrote: | Great read. The pandemic forced my close friends to go from in | person drinks to zooms but then quickly transitioned to async | voice messages. The by product of this is everyone gets a chance | to be a giver and taker without having take the spotlight | immediately. Sometimes our conversations last weeks as someone | comes in and reignites debate after bringing a new point. It's | all async. Curious is anyone else has found similar success with | voice messaging as a medium. | SamPatt wrote: | I have. It's my favorite way to keep up with people. | | The only issue is that people can't always listen, or speak, so | they need to either just wait to reply, or you both need to | switch to text often. | | We tend to learn each other's schedules and then send messages | based on availability. | myself248 wrote: | When I was a little kid, I remember my dad and uncle would mail | cassette tapes back and forth, instead of writing letters. | | Dad would gleefully find one in the mail, unwrap it, open a | beer, and sit down with his headphones on and notepad in hand. | Once in a while he'd actually pause the playback while jotting | notes, but mostly the things he wanted to respond to only | needed a scribbled word or two as a prompt for later. | | Having finished the tape, he'd walk around for a minute to | collect his thoughts, grab a second beer but not open it, | rewind the tape, press Record, wait a count of 5 for the leader | to be past the record head, then crack that beer right into the | microphone -- every tape started with that sound -- and begin | to hold forth. | avivo wrote: | > It turns out that we like people the best when they respond to | us the fastest--so fast (mere milliseconds!) that they must be | formulating their reply long before we finish our turn. | | This might be true; but looking into the linked study, it appears | to be on Dartmouth students. This claim at least maybe culturally | dependent. | jackconsidine wrote: | I enjoyed this read. I'm typically an interviewer in | conversations and assumed that was the less abrasive way to be. | Just the other day though, I realized that it's probably | preferable for a conversation partner to be given the option to | comment on an inviting declaration than to be forced to answer a | question. | zwkrt wrote: | True. A date with an interviewer can be flattering if they are | engaged in your answers, but interviewing is also a subtle way | to control the flow of information and remain private. | djmips wrote: | I found the giver and taker nomenclature hard to keep straight. | stu2b50 wrote: | I had a hard time remembering which is which until I started to | mentally append "stage" to it. Stage giver, stage taker - | taking the stage, giving the stage. | | The author, given the context of improv, seems to have been | implicitly using that as the metaphor the entire time but it | didn't stick to me until I thought about it more. | a9h74j wrote: | This article has a bit more information and terminology. | | There used to be advice around "progressive disclosure" in | conversation. You say something e.g. very-slightly-risky to | disclose, while also asking e.g. a less-risky-to-answer question. | The other person then has a choice of gradient toward more or | less disclosure or inquiry, and whether to answer or ask more. | notRobot wrote: | > This article has a bit more information and terminology. | | I may be misreading this, but did you mean to link to | something? | uwagar wrote: | i prefer love handles. | ReactiveJelly wrote: | You might need Monty Hall to open a lot of doors before you can | find those | gkoberger wrote: | This is so completely off topic, but if the idea of an improv | musical about Spiderman's dating life sounds up your alley, you | should check out this episode of Off Book: The Improvised | Musical. The premise is Spiderman + MJ in couples therapy, and | it's phenomenal. | | https://podcasts.apple.com/my/podcast/marvel-sing-ematic-uni... | saghm wrote: | Logistically, how does the instrumental part of the music get | improvised on the spot in a way that the actors can sing along? | Do they have preexisting music determined that the actors can | improvise lyrics to? Or do they just sing without musical | backing and then music gets recorded to match it later? | gkoberger wrote: | In this particular podcast, they have a three-piece band they | work with every episode (guitar, drums and piano). The music | is improvised just like the singing. Usually either the piano | or guitar will start, the other two will join in. And then | they follow each other. | | They definitely rely on musical tropes they all know, for | example "rock song" or "broadway song". But overall, it's a | combination of them all being insanely talented, having | worked together a lot, and once in a while cue-ing each | other. | | Here's an episode of another podcast they guested on | (Switched On Pop) where they walk through their process (AND | do an improv musical at the same time): | https://switchedonpop.com/episodes/switched-off-book-with- | je... | | Also, if you want a quick video of them doing it, here's an | example with them, the band, and Jason Mantzoukas: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCI0gD_K27M | drewcoo wrote: | Did you ever see the David Letterman show? Paul Schaffer, the | keyboardist and bandleader on the show is a great example of | that. Before Letterman, he played piano on Saturday Night | Live. | | Paul was an improviser, musically and comedically. Some word | or concept Dave was riffing on would catch something in Paul | and out would come related (often hilarious) music. On SNL, | he and Bill Murray did a great lounge pianist/singer duo, | playing off one another and obviously not entirely rehearsed. | | I'll let you dig for links to that stuff. The digging is | probably more fun than some presented example in this case. | a9h74j wrote: | Saw musical improve live in the 1990s. One keyboardist live | to accompany. Not a musician so I can't say about expected | chord changes vs. transposition, etc. | Rayhem wrote: | > Conversational affordances are things like digressions and | confessions and bold claims that beg for a rejoinder. | | Isn't that just giving? I mean, sure, I guess you can say "That | movie sucked and anybody who liked it can fight me!" and then not | give a shit about what anyone else says which probably isn't | giving, but putting that out there and watching for who responds | to what and then enticing them with more of that is the essence | of giving (and conversation). | bckr wrote: | TFA uses "giving" and "taking" in an idiosyncratic way. | Specifically, in terms of giving/taking _the stage_. That 's | the purpose of the story about improv at the top. | myself248 wrote: | Yeah. This was the hardest thing for me to wrap my head | around while reading. Even after the terms were put in | context, it was Hard Work to continue forcing them into my | mind. | | Eventually I just gave up on that and realized that the rest | of the point was thoroughly useful without those terms. | randallsquared wrote: | This has a lot of good insight, but I was struck by how | differently I experience | | > _"What's up?" is one of the most dreadful texts to get; it's | short for "Hello, I'd like you to entertain me now."_ | | The typical response to "What's up?" from myself and, uh, nearly | everyone I know, is some variation on | | "Not much! What's up with you?" or | | "[trivial recent happening, quickly related] So, what's been | going on with you?" | | ...and that's because "What's up?" is nearly universally a way to | prompt someone to ask you that question back, so you can tell | them about the thing you really want to say without it seeming | sudden or forced. | naavis wrote: | > "What's up?" is nearly universally a way to prompt someone to | ask you that question back, so you can tell them about the | thing you really want to say without it seeming sudden or | forced. | | Maybe in the United States, but I would hardly call it | universal. | Aeolun wrote: | Like saying "How are you doing?" in Europe is an invitation | to tell your life story. | swayvil wrote: | "WHAT'S UP!?". The pre-emptive assault. The demand. | | Like he's swinging a club at you. The only reply is to raise | your shield. | | Or you could do something clever. But either way your attention | has been lassoed. | | Gotta be cleverer. | randallsquared wrote: | "What's up?" is the knock. They _could_ lead with whatever | they really want to ask you or push at you, whether it 's | telling you about their vacation to Ireland or asking you if | they can hold a thousand this month, but instead they've | given you the opportunity to not respond, or to say "Hey, | really busy; talk later?" :) | notRobot wrote: | When I was younger and more pretentious I used to get annoyed | at friends for answering "what's up?" with "nothing much" | because in my head by asking that I was obviously fishing for | conversation material so you should just bring up _something_ | that we can talk about. | | Something that happened recently or something that you heard | about or something you remembered or something you are looking | forward to, just... anything. | swayvil wrote: | I used to be that way too. Now I see that there are depths | there that I didn't see. I was blind to my blindness. I try | to keep my cool now. Reply with something soft and cool. | guelo wrote: | Well why are you putting it on them to come up with something | to talk about? "Not much, sup with you?" puts it back on you. | notRobot wrote: | I used to only ask "what's up?" after I'd exhausted | everything I had to talk about usually. I used to think a | lot about dynamics like these lmao. | kebman wrote: | What's up? | | I'm playing with LEGO(r). | | I'm eating sushi. You? | | I'm in spaaaaaaceeeee but I'm separated from my module!!! | Halp! | noman-land wrote: | It seems some people might be more comfortable sitting in | silence and so they don't feel the need to talk about | _anything_ as a way to break it. Maybe it's an | introvert/extrovert thing. | swatcoder wrote: | > prompt someone to ask you that question back | | Huh. I'm glad this is not a thing in my circles. Being direct | and exposing some vulnerability seems to work great for us. | | I known its just a custom that can't be analyzed too deeply, | but what you describe sounds so timid and shy from the outside. | | Rightly or wrongly (probably wrongly), if I picked up that | someone was doing this, I'd assume they need a lot of special | handling and ceremony to feel comfortable. It would take a lot | for me to want to bother. | aesthesia wrote: | This reminds me of the "no hello" proposal for workplace chat | messages (e.g. https://nohello.net/). It's much less of a big | deal for personal communication, but I can understand wanting | someone to just say what they want to say without a manual | SYN/ACK first. | throwaway290 wrote: | It's a feeler (IMO way more descriptive than "doorknob") that | lets you bail if you don't want to talk. Without it you may | feel obligated to listen or have to be slightly rude. With it | you have a range of options like "swamped on this project, | catch up with you later" or such depending on circumstances | to avoid straining a relationship. | | In async communication it's unnecessary though, people might | do it by inertia. | mike_hock wrote: | Hey, you wouldn't believe who I just met in the elev | | TCP RST | i_like_waiting wrote: | I had colleague that was 10x developer but 0/10 communicator, | if he didn't receive separate first message with "Hi, how is | it going?" without me waiting for his answer before | requesting something, he wouldn't reply. | | It was such a dead end for getting things done (he was | productive on his things, but blocker for everybody else. | BrandoElFollito wrote: | I like the "hello" before someone engages in a chat because | this way I can confirm that i) I am available to talk and ii) | the message is safe (i.e. I am not displaying in front of 200 | people and forgot to switch off IM). | | If someone just wants to send me an information, email is | great for that. | | My personal order of contacts is snail mail - email - IM - | phone - in person. Each of the steps is one order of | magnitude of urgency greater than the previous one. | | There is probably also a cultural component. | marcosdumay wrote: | If you want to know if the person can chat right now, you | can always say "Oh, hello. Do you have time for a short | chat right now?" | | Every other time when you don't need to know that, you can | still not get all the problems of the empty "hello" | message. | BrandoElFollito wrote: | I always want to know that because I do not want to send | messages when it is not a good time for that. Nor I want | to receive any. | | A "hello" means it is "IM urgent" so it can wait for the | moment I am OK to exchange. | | Like I said, this is also cultural - some cultures allow | people to interrupt others, some not. | watwut wrote: | I don't want to wait there and stare in typing icon while | you are typing and retyping and figuring out what you | want to send. | | That is why hello is annoying. People are capable to talk | immediately, but take forever to finish writing. | jiggawatts wrote: | Try: "Oh, hello. Do you have time for a short chat right | now about a database schema change?" | | I almost always have time to fight fires -- unless busy | with a larger conflagration. I may or may not have the | time to debate the finer points of table naming | conventions however. | | Without context I might say yes and then have to _take it | back_ once I discover the topic. | krnlpnc wrote: | I guarantee you are annoying people with this. "Hello" | conveys no information, you might as well say "tag". | | "Hello, could we set a time to chat about xyz" lets the | reader give a meaningful response when available (and | _maybe_ thats immediate) | | I simply ignore hellos but happily respond to questions. | Aeolun wrote: | > i) I am available to talk and ii) the message is safe | | If I'm at work, I'm always going to be available to talk, | and anyway, nothing is lost by them sending me what they | want to say and me responding when I become available. | | I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't ever send messages | that are unsafe for 200 of your colleagues to see. | QuantumSeed wrote: | As a developer who occasionally gets pulled in to help with | urgent support issues, I dread bare hello messages. It gives | me too much time to imagine a down site or some other | critical event. Asking the question up front spares me a lot | of stress. | krnlpnc wrote: | I'll add too that it's better to end a work convo with | pleasantries than to begin one. | | "Hey I'm blocked on xyz, thanks anyways how was your | weekend?" | | Is far more pleasant than | | "Hey how's the weekend? anyway I'm blocked on xyz" | alimov wrote: | I mostly agree, and think that In addiction to what you said | "what's up" is basically like pinging someone to see if they | are available so that some additional reason planning can occur | [deleted] | [deleted] | tunesmith wrote: | This is really cool but I think I need more examples of how to | create good doorknobs. | | wait, did I just create one? | tcgv wrote: | Second that! I took a while to grasp the concept of "social | doorknobs" while reading this text. I think it boils down to | something people can use to open up conversational pathways and | keep the conversation flowing. | myself248 wrote: | While reading this, I kept drawing parallels to how I like to | teach. (I'm not a professional teacher, but I volunteer at a | makerspace and nothing is more fun than watching someone | grasp a new concept and use it to actually make something.) | | I tend to think that, in general, there's very little new | under the sun, so most students are already equipped with | analogies that will help them understand what I'm teaching. | That is, if I can just figure out what they're familiar with | and draw the appropriate parallels. | | Teaching, then, becomes an exercise in learning my student | and trying to express analogies that they can grab onto. | Which means sometimes throwing out a slow-ball so they have | an easy hit, and seeing which metaphor they use to hit it | with, which then gives me some information about how to | proceed. | xg15 wrote: | > _That's why when psychologists want to jump-start friendship in | the lab_ | | ...wait, we can do what now? | kentlyons wrote: | Yes. And the author provides both a cite for an academic | publication as well as one from popular media. (And it's not | exactly new either - the paper was published in 97). | 082349872349872 wrote: | TIL we also can jump-start outgroup formation in the lab: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_group_paradigm | | (or should I have learned it much earlier? https://en.wikiped | ia.org/wiki/The_Sneetches_and_Other_Storie... ) | krupan wrote: | Chastising givers who resent takers, the author says it's "..easy | to forget how lovely it feels when you don't want the spotlight | and a taker lets you recline on the mezzanine while they fill the | stage." | | As a giver, I'd usually rather not be stuck in the "conversation" | (more like, speech) that the taker is dominating. | i_like_waiting wrote: | I think good conversation is lot about confidence of people | involved. I had terrible conversations (or at least their | attempts) where people threw at me questions so quickly I haven't | had chance to plant some doorknobs. | | Many of encounters where I had to resist their "and you?" | questions, as I saw an opportunity to expand on what they were | saying. | | Which I find weird because then I am completely terrible at group | conversations (as there is already taker & giver, so I just go to | role of listener) | DawnQFunk3 wrote: | spawarotti wrote: | This article reminds me of "The Church of Interruption", the best | short article I ever read about communication styles: | https://sambleckley.com/writing/church-of-interruption.html | wallflower wrote: | Wow, thanks for posting that. I am learning more about not | interrupting now. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-08-21 23:00 UTC)