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I agree that expanding communication with strangers is important. But starting with "Do you mind if I sit here? Or did you want to be alone with your thoughts?"
by tl2do 7mo ago
I agree that expanding communication with strangers is important. But starting with "Do you mind if I sit here? Or did you want to be alone with your thoughts?" and then continuing a conversation for 10+ minutes is a real struggle for me. Sometimes I even wonder—how exactly does this kind of individual conversation actually help me? Maybe this is just me.
- majormajor 7mo agoYeah it'll be hard. But with a lot of practice it'll get easier. I think part of the practice is recognizing "they don't want me to continue this conversation" and bailing, vs trying to force every interaction to be a deeper conversation. I never practiced "idle conversation with a complete stranger" like that because I was lazy. But I did practice making normal, non-sexual, conversation with women on dating sites and dates so that I could go from "isolated in school, then after going online, low response rate and never more than 1 or 2 dates" to someone in a long-term relationship. And recognizing that sort of "ok there's just not any interest here, move along" signal was definitely relevant there too. Skills take investment. My parents didn't give me nearly as many opportunities to practice these skills as they had when they grew up, and pop culture actively encouraged me not to talk to strangers as a kid, so I had to work harder at them as an adult. But it was worth it.
- tl2do 7mo agoIs it a matter of skill, or a matter of courage?
- johnnyanmac 7mo agoIt's a matter of priveledge. Many people don't have time to try and make new connections
- reddalo 7mo ago>how exactly does this kind of individual conversation actually help me? It doesn't. It just helps the speaker.
- tl2do 7mo agoThat makes me think—why do I enjoy conversations with friends then? What's really the difference between a friend and a stranger? Friends annoy me too, maybe even more often than strangers do.
- johnnyanmac 7mo agoYour friends are hopefully somewhat invested in you for a non-transactional reason, and have proven to be a non-threat. There's no guarantees with a stranger.
- jmye 7mo agoWhat a bizarre perspective. Have you never gotten any personal value out of a single conversation in your entire life? Have you never made a friend? I don't understand this "all conversations are bad and useless" nonsense. What on earth do you think you're doing on social media?
- reddalo 7mo agoI'm not saying that all conversations are bad. I'm just talking about the one hour one-sided conversations described in the article.
- basilikum 7mo agoOne of the basic rules of starting conversations with other people is letting the other person do most of the talking. People like talking about themselves. So the old lady in the article violated that rule. That isn't to say that just talking to people instead of actually talking with them will never work. You might be lucky and the person you talk to just happens to be very interested in what you want to tell them, but it is rather unlikely. Once you have shown that you are interested in someone by listening to them and thereby learning about them, you might sometimes find that they might also be interested in something you can share with them. The easiest way to get someone interested in you is to first get interested in them. It's a pretty simple principle, but since people like to talk about themselves they often do not follow it.