[HN Gopher] Conversation Skills Essentials
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Conversation Skills Essentials
Author : lylejantzi3rd
Score : 62 points
Date : 2023-01-01 14:19 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tynan.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tynan.com)
| marstall wrote:
| lol I want to be this guy's friend.
|
| no but seriously I learned a lot, thanks.
| User23 wrote:
| I don't like this notion that good conversation must somehow be
| dishonest. To my mind, the key is being sympathetic to your
| interlocutors--sympathetic in the old sense, meaning
| understanding and sharing their emotions.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| I enjoyed
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_den_Umgang_mit_Menschen ,
| from the XVIII. Its modern namesakes are just "etiquette
| books", but the original was far from the genre, and more about
| how one can attempt to get enjoyable and perhaps enlightening
| conversations, with specific examples concerning a diverse set
| of personality types. (almost all of which are still here in
| the XXI)
|
| "Getting along with the rest of the world" might be a
| translation, similar to the french notion of _savoir etre_ (as
| opposed to _savoir faire_ )...
| agolio wrote:
| Seems there is lots of discussion already about "Don't interrupt"
|
| I will add another POV:
|
| You kind of have to interrupt in group conversations or you will
| never talk at all. That's what regularly happens to me at least,
| I need to learn to speak up a bit more...
| nyx wrote:
| I always wonder what kinds of people benefit from writeups like
| this. Maybe I'm deceiving myself, but I feel as though I'm a
| pretty good conversationalist, despite not having much of an in-
| person social life in my formative years. The suggestions in
| articles like this one always seem pretty obvious to me.
|
| Are there people out there who read this and realize "oh crap, I
| interrupt too much," or "huh, I should try to be more aware of
| the other person's interest level before infodumping on them"? My
| hunch is that people who might genuinely benefit from these
| suggestions are, to put it bluntly, generally too poorly
| socialized to even recognize that their behavior could use the
| adjustment.
|
| A demographic I could see benefiting more from this kind of thing
| are the obsessive-optimizer class of folks who interact with
| others in a cynical, How-to-Win-Friends kind of way, and who see
| social interactions with fellow humans as something to be min-
| maxed. I'm sure those people are over-represented on orangesite,
| so this might be controversial, but I don't think that doing an
| intentional post-mortem on every social interaction you have is
| any way to live.
| [deleted]
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > Don't Interrupt
|
| _The Church of Interruption_ [1] is a great essay on this topic,
| arguing that it's a matter of compatibility. It's been discussed
| on HN a lot[2][3].
|
| [1]: https://sambleckley.com/writing/church-of-interruption.html
|
| [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21044009
|
| [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32545023
| anonymousDan wrote:
| Although I agree with the interruption part, I think it's
| sometimes worth cutting people who interrupt you a bit of slack
| as some people tend to talk more when they get nervous.
| packetlost wrote:
| As someone with pretty bad ADHD... it's literally not something
| I can control. Most people who deal with me regularly are
| likely now used to it, but meeting new people it can definitely
| be off-putting.
| marstall wrote:
| why is it that you can't control it?
| packetlost wrote:
| Part of it is how I was raised, part of it is that I'll
| forget whatever I have to say in like 5 seconds. Often
| times, if I'm having deep technical discussion I'll
| interrupt to ask clarifying questions while the _specific_
| topic is still relevant because it 's easier for me to
| digest related information without gaps.
| Swizec wrote:
| I like to interrupt people when I know that I have information
| to share that will invalidate the next 10min of what they have
| to say. At that point you're just wasting everyone's time if
| you don't interrupt.
|
| For example, if you start explaining your fantastic plan for
| what we can build in 3 days, but I know we have a 1 day budget.
| JackFr wrote:
| > I like to interrupt people when I know that I have
| information to share that will invalidate the next 10min of
| what they have to say.
|
| It's unlikely that they are delivering a 10 minute monologue
| without ever offering a pause to let you politely and
| naturally interject with your information.
|
| More than that though, the idea that you have no need to
| listen to what they are saying - because you know what it is
| and is likely a waste of everyone's time - tells me that you
| are probably a terrible listener and likely a difficult
| person to have a conversation with.
|
| In the example you give, by shutting them up, you basically
| have shut the door on any good ideas they might have - ideas
| that might be good regardless of the time budget.
| cj wrote:
| All good tactics!
|
| I especially like the tactic of validating the person you're
| talking to in order to communicate that you're interested in what
| they're saying.
|
| E.g. "That's a really good point" or "That's really interesting"
| or "I really like that thought". And if someone tells a mediocre
| joke but you want to continue engaging, simply saying "That's
| really funny" is a good substitute when the joke isn't funny
| enough to actually laugh!
|
| If your sole goal is to make the other person feel like they're
| having a great conversation with you, the simplest advice is to
| make sure they're talking at least 1.5x as much as you. When
| someone does the majority of the talking, that person more often
| walks away feeling like they had a great conversation.
| splatzone wrote:
| Great points.
|
| I'm not sure about saying 'that's really funny' when someone
| tells a crap joke though. At least where I live in the UK, that
| comment would come off as insincere and be quite distancing -
| better to just smile or tease them gently
| hammock wrote:
| > tease them gently
|
| Depending on the tone used, saying 'that's really funny'
| could very easily be turned into a gentle tease
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > make sure they're talking at least 1.5x as much as you
|
| I completely agree, but be aware this can backfire. My wife
| said that on our first date, she felt she was at a job
| interview. I asked so many questions in order to keep her
| talking about herself (people love to talk about themselves). I
| guess it worked because we got married, but still, she did not
| feel entirely comfortable about that first date.
|
| Maybe that's why this article says keep it at 50/50, not 1.5x.
| baxtr wrote:
| Is your username related to that story?
| Reptur wrote:
| I interrupt sometimes because of my ADHD, not because I am rude,
| but because I am disabled. If I don't get it out, it'll be lost
| forever. Its important to remember not everyone is running on the
| same playing field.
| jraph wrote:
| Would you be able to write it down on paper?
|
| When I'm interrupted, _I_ often lose my train of thought. I
| might be able to recover it after some struggle, but not
| always, and it 's very exhausting and I often give up,
| especially if it happens several times in a short time span.
| Articulating words and sentences and thoughts is a slow and
| tiring process for me.
|
| So how would we do if we had to speak together?
|
| I will let someone speak as soon as possible if they express
| the need to speak with some body / face clue however.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I've tried to do this but it's intimidating or distracting to
| the person you're conversing with when you suddenly start
| taking notes as they speak.
| jraph wrote:
| I guess a possible solution would be avoiding long
| monologues.
|
| I easily get bored when someone speaks for a long time.
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