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> Imagine someone tells me a story about some crazy thing they did when they got drunk. As a non-drinker who can’t relate I might not find it that interesting,

by johnfn 4y ago

> Imagine someone tells me a story about some crazy thing they did when they got drunk. As a non-drinker who can’t relate I might not find it that interesting, but would still try to say something positive like, “Wow, sounds crazy.” If they really want validation from the story, they might try to tack on statements to get a bigger reaction. “Yeah, it was wild!” or “My friends couldn’t believe it!”, to which there is no possible response other than a bigger reaction or awkward silence. > This sort of behavior puts a huge burden on the listener because it makes them responsible for your emotional state. Their options are to deny you the emotional state you want, or to give it to you by lying. What? This seems so off-base that it makes me question the rest of the advice in this guide. Sharing a story that you're passionate about isn't an immediate conversation killer. Nor does it "put a burden on the listener" to be responsible for your emotional state. Goodness! If there's an awkward silence, it's because the other person is politely inviting you to share another related story. A perfectly fine response to the above is "Oh yeah, that reminds me of the time when I [similarly crazy story]." Or, if you have no similarly crazy stories, share a story related in some other way. > Ask Questions While I'm soliloquizing, here's another thought. A lot of people say "ask questions" as a way to improve conversations, but miss a key bit of context. The real advice is: "Ask questions about what you're curious about." For the best conversation, you want to guide them to a place where you're both interested enough in the topic at hand that it basically runs on autopilot - where all the advice in this guide becomes meaningless because you both are doing it automatically because you're both engaged with the topic at hand. The best way to do that is to guide the conversation to a place of mutual interest. A common failure mode I see is where people will ask questions about things they could care less about, then end up stranded in some awkward conversational territory that neither person cares about too much. It is nice to let the other person vent sometimes, but that isn't the only goal.

jackmott 4y ago
The problem wasn’t sharing the story. The problem was after sharing the story and getting a lukewarm response the story teller kept pressing for an enthusiastic response. Does that make more sense? Have I misread the article perhaps?
- csydas 4y ago
  Vouched since I don't get the downvotes and want to respond. The author sort of conflates two things in this section of the article; lack of interest and lack of knowledge. The author's lack of interest in drinking adventures is actually their faux pas in my opinion if it's a story from a friend wanting to share a story. My friends have tons of interests I do not share, but I love to hear them talk about their interests because it's something new and they're my friends. I would not be as open to listening about beading or car mechanics from someone I'm not close to since I lack the knowledge to really participate and I just don't really care about someone I don't know very well and their hobbies unless they're a really engaging story teller (then I'm all ears) The author's article in general sets a lot of weird social rules that they seem to prefer but this is not really some universal standard, it's just some social rules that the author abides by and is positioning as a good set of rules to follow. Some of the advice is okay; if someone is visibly bored and not engaging, don't keep going on with the same topic, switch it up or move on. Other advice is weird, like the positive disagreement; disagreement is fun! You have a chance to learn something new and as long as you aren't positioning your entire self worth on a position, probably it's a fun discussion. I disagree with people in a friendly way all the time, most importantly my friends, and we're better for it, not worse. We say how we feel and feel more.relaxed that when there is a disagreement, we understand it's normal and natural. The article weirdly tries to position some nice advice, but I think it does more confusion than good.
  - i_am_toaster 4y ago
    I don’t really agree with this, if you’ve never noticed someone respond in the overly negative way to things you say as annoying and conversation-stopping, there is a good chance you don’t realize how other people perceive this. Sure, if you have close friends they can probably roll with the punches, but I bet they’d appreciate your conversation more if you disagreed to things in a positive way. Maybe to give a more obvious example: “Do you like to play any shooters” “Nah, I think shooters are stupid.” This halt’s the conversation and reads as “I think the thing you like is stupid, and also now I want you to respond to that.” If the goal was to continue the conversation, the same feeling could have been expressed conversationally as… “I’m not really a fan of shooters tbh, I’m more into puzzle games.” This does 2 things — it expresses your disinterest in the topic presented without insulting your conversational partners preference and it follows up with an offer of similar topic that might be of interest to the other so that they could respond like… “Oh, I haven’t seen any good puzzle games lately! You have any recommendations?” I don’t really think there is an exception to this rule. The reason for this is that responding negatively should imply you find the others opinion unsavory: “This driver is so terrible, they must be Asian.” “That’s racist.” The reason that the negative disagreement is used here is not to continue the conversation; rather, it’s to let the other person know that you think their opinion is wrong/bad. (I’m not saying this is a good way to go about this conversation either, I just think it’s more obvious what effect the negative disagreement has on conversation.)
deleted 4y ago
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jmpeax 4y ago
> A perfectly fine response to the above is "Oh yeah, that reminds me of the time when I [similarly crazy story]." I do this, and get the feeling that people think I'm trying to one-up them.

by johnfn 4y ago

jackmott 4y ago

The problem wasn’t sharing the story. The problem was after sharing the story and getting a lukewarm response the story teller kept pressing for an enthusiastic response. Does that make more sense? Have I misread the article perhaps?

csydas 4y ago
Vouched since I don't get the downvotes and want to respond. The author sort of conflates two things in this section of the article; lack of interest and lack of knowledge. The author's lack of interest in drinking adventures is actually their faux pas in my opinion if it's a story from a friend wanting to share a story. My friends have tons of interests I do not share, but I love to hear them talk about their interests because it's something new and they're my friends. I would not be as open to listening about beading or car mechanics from someone I'm not close to since I lack the knowledge to really participate and I just don't really care about someone I don't know very well and their hobbies unless they're a really engaging story teller (then I'm all ears) The author's article in general sets a lot of weird social rules that they seem to prefer but this is not really some universal standard, it's just some social rules that the author abides by and is positioning as a good set of rules to follow. Some of the advice is okay; if someone is visibly bored and not engaging, don't keep going on with the same topic, switch it up or move on. Other advice is weird, like the positive disagreement; disagreement is fun! You have a chance to learn something new and as long as you aren't positioning your entire self worth on a position, probably it's a fun discussion. I disagree with people in a friendly way all the time, most importantly my friends, and we're better for it, not worse. We say how we feel and feel more.relaxed that when there is a disagreement, we understand it's normal and natural. The article weirdly tries to position some nice advice, but I think it does more confusion than good.
- i_am_toaster 4y ago
  I don’t really agree with this, if you’ve never noticed someone respond in the overly negative way to things you say as annoying and conversation-stopping, there is a good chance you don’t realize how other people perceive this. Sure, if you have close friends they can probably roll with the punches, but I bet they’d appreciate your conversation more if you disagreed to things in a positive way. Maybe to give a more obvious example: “Do you like to play any shooters” “Nah, I think shooters are stupid.” This halt’s the conversation and reads as “I think the thing you like is stupid, and also now I want you to respond to that.” If the goal was to continue the conversation, the same feeling could have been expressed conversationally as… “I’m not really a fan of shooters tbh, I’m more into puzzle games.” This does 2 things — it expresses your disinterest in the topic presented without insulting your conversational partners preference and it follows up with an offer of similar topic that might be of interest to the other so that they could respond like… “Oh, I haven’t seen any good puzzle games lately! You have any recommendations?” I don’t really think there is an exception to this rule. The reason for this is that responding negatively should imply you find the others opinion unsavory: “This driver is so terrible, they must be Asian.” “That’s racist.” The reason that the negative disagreement is used here is not to continue the conversation; rather, it’s to let the other person know that you think their opinion is wrong/bad. (I’m not saying this is a good way to go about this conversation either, I just think it’s more obvious what effect the negative disagreement has on conversation.)

deleted 4y ago

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jmpeax 4y ago

> A perfectly fine response to the above is "Oh yeah, that reminds me of the time when I [similarly crazy story]." I do this, and get the feeling that people think I'm trying to one-up them.