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I’m on the extroverted end of things but I think principles are the same. First though: some people are simply hard to talk to. They just don’t give you anythi

I’m on the extroverted end of things but I think principles are the same. First though: some people are simply hard to talk to. They just don’t give you anything back. If you run into these people, don’t beat yourself up over it. Just give it a try and move on if you can’t get anywhere. Now for the meat of my advice: ask questions. Always be asking questions. I find that people generally love to talk about stuff that’s close to them. Let’s try just two examples: 1. Where are you from? - how big is it there? - do you live downtown or in the suburbs? - what’s traffic like? - what’s the weather like there? Hot summers? Cold winters? Much snow? Much rain? - is it expensive to live there? - much to do there? - do you do road trips from there? Is it close to other nice places? - etc, forever 2. What do you do? - What do you work on? Who do you work with? Hours? Keep up to date? Weekends? Evenings? How big is the company? How much time off? What do you do with your time off? Basically I find myself constantly asking questions during these conversations. The more freely they talk, the more questions I’ll ask. I’ll also ask lots of personal questions later on in the conversation if things are going well. How much is your house / car (generally) etc. The easy way to get to these answers is to offer your own: “The cost of living where I am is great, largely bc houses are relatively cheap. My house was $300k. I bet you can’t get a house for that much where you live?” If you learn to start thinking in questions you’ll start to develop some good habits here and it’ll get easier. But again, I can do this all day with the right people, but with the wrong people even 5 minutes I’d a slog. Good luck!

sorenn111 7y ago
Great tips, people love talking about themselves. I also like to try to be empathetic and really understand their answers. If people give a vague answer to a question, you can continue the conversation by trying understand their answer more fully and ask follow up questions. I'd steer away from money questions and answers though. Official decorum often prohibits such questions and people can take those questions and answers quite personally.
MichaelMcG 7y ago
Good points, I basically use the same strategy with a few exceptions: Re: #2 I don't like to focus on conversations related to occupation, I've found people start to open up much more if you focus on who they are/what they actually enjoy doing outside of work, since most people don't like to be defined by their occupation. The random outlier being they work full-time on something they are really passionate/care about, but that is fairly easy to figure out if they mention it as how they spend their free time, or in rare cases they mention it due to the position being (in their eyes) a status symbol e.g. my college friends on Wall Street in IB/PE. Re: House/car values, I've found people get real weird discussing values and it's sort of 50/50 on commiserating with you/being annoyed about high living costs. Some people love humble-bragging that they can afford to live in/own property in a location 2x * U.S. Avg CoL, others get annoyed you are apparently bragging about your affordable location. One of those things you'd have to play close to the chest. I think it all comes down to if they mention hating the high CoL where they are and their desire to move.
mapcars 7y ago
>First though: some people are simply hard to talk to. They just don’t give you anything back Lol, you can talk to anyone whenever they are talking back or not is not your problem.
brokenmachine 7y ago
Can you give any advice on how to politely stop this kind of interrogation? Personally I hate small talk but sometimes get dragged into these kinds of questioning sessions. I'd like to just be able to say, "I'd rather not discuss that", but that would obviously come off as rude.
- munchbunny 7y ago
  Just start asking questions back to change the topic. Whoever is asking the questions holds the power to control the topic, so if you start asking them about what they thought of the ending of Game of Thrones, it becomes their fault that they're making it weird by insisting on asking about your mortgage terms.

sorenn111 7y ago

Great tips, people love talking about themselves. I also like to try to be empathetic and really understand their answers. If people give a vague answer to a question, you can continue the conversation by trying understand their answer more fully and ask follow up questions. I'd steer away from money questions and answers though. Official decorum often prohibits such questions and people can take those questions and answers quite personally.

MichaelMcG 7y ago

Good points, I basically use the same strategy with a few exceptions: Re: #2 I don't like to focus on conversations related to occupation, I've found people start to open up much more if you focus on who they are/what they actually enjoy doing outside of work, since most people don't like to be defined by their occupation. The random outlier being they work full-time on something they are really passionate/care about, but that is fairly easy to figure out if they mention it as how they spend their free time, or in rare cases they mention it due to the position being (in their eyes) a status symbol e.g. my college friends on Wall Street in IB/PE. Re: House/car values, I've found people get real weird discussing values and it's sort of 50/50 on commiserating with you/being annoyed about high living costs. Some people love humble-bragging that they can afford to live in/own property in a location 2x * U.S. Avg CoL, others get annoyed you are apparently bragging about your affordable location. One of those things you'd have to play close to the chest. I think it all comes down to if they mention hating the high CoL where they are and their desire to move.

mapcars 7y ago

>First though: some people are simply hard to talk to. They just don’t give you anything back Lol, you can talk to anyone whenever they are talking back or not is not your problem.

brokenmachine 7y ago

Can you give any advice on how to politely stop this kind of interrogation? Personally I hate small talk but sometimes get dragged into these kinds of questioning sessions. I'd like to just be able to say, "I'd rather not discuss that", but that would obviously come off as rude.

munchbunny 7y ago
Just start asking questions back to change the topic. Whoever is asking the questions holds the power to control the topic, so if you start asking them about what they thought of the ending of Game of Thrones, it becomes their fault that they're making it weird by insisting on asking about your mortgage terms.