Having an interesting conversation with someone you just met. I see people do this shit all the time and they make it look like it comes naturally but every time I’m in that situation it is so difficult. Its like a series of quick time events that im severely underprepared for
I learned to combat this with 3 simple questions:
- What kind of job do you do? (Or study)
- Where do you live?
- Do you have any kids, dog,…
Be interrested in their answers and add some simple follow-up questions that show you are listening. Add some content of your own as a follow-up.
Posing that first question can be a bit weird, but the rest is as simple as it sounds.
Be interested in their answers
Yeah, so, that’s where I usually drop the ball. What if I’m just… not?
That’s where I rely on “fake it till you make it”.
What if, completely hypothetically of course, I’m pushing 40 and only moderately depressed but still prefer the company of my dogs to most people?
It really depends on the person, you have to have some sort of jumping off point. Whether that is sharing something in common with someone or having cool hobbies.
I think this is the biggest myth of conversation. People always tell you to search for people whom you share something in common with, but the reality is that nearly everyone shares something in common and there’s no reason to go searching for it.
The key to a good conversation with a stranger is to initially do two things: 1. Ask details about the stranger and 2. Intertwine that with yourself in some way. You don’t even need to share this part.
Good conversations have these things I’ll call “footholds” where you intentionally give each other details shortly after meeting in order to create those ties in conversation. If you ask where someone is from, you should shortly offer up where you are from as well. Or if you ask about a hobby, offer a light comparison to your own.
Once you have enough of these footholds, the conversation should flow freely. If it ever doesn’t, ask the stranger more about themselves. And trust me, just be interested in what they say.
I sometimes use the alphabet method. When a conversation gets stuck I think of words starting with a and form a question from that.
Example : angler fish, amazon, aeroplane
-> do you like travelling? What’s your dream destination? Do you like the deep sea/ocean/swimming?
I think for short ask questions, actually listen to their answers and follow up or share your own experiences. Now you’re conversating.
I’m not perfect at it, but what helps me is that I genuinely love to learn and I like to take the opportunity to learn from people when I meet them. I just need to find an entry point (job, hobby, something the person is knowledgeable about) and then I start asking questions, and applying the limited knowledge I might already have on the subject.
With short interactions with people that are working (supermarket, bank, restaurant, phone assistance) I usually go for empathy, and overall just being nice. When one comes to me I go for a joke to brighten their day a bit.
*stressed depressed lemon zest
Parenting. Before I had kids I was often judgmental of parents, but now I’ve realized all the things I didn’t take into account and all the things you just don’t have control over. In my case, I was not expecting to be a single parent, there was the pandemic, and I did not factor in how impactful the lack of sleep and autonomy would be.
Even without suddenly becoming single, or a pandemic, or anything, being a parent isn’t something that can be explained to someone who hasn’t experienced it, IMO. You can use words to explain, that you think are accurate. But it just has to be experienced to fully understand. The fatigue, the change in stress levels, the amount of time you lose. Conceptually not hard to grasp. But the way it feels, different story. “Wow, this is worse/more than I thought.”
But given all that, it’s also hard to explain that it’s all worth it. One of the best things about being a parent right now for me personally, is watching my kids learn everything for the first time, and the wonders of learning, beaming from their eyes. It’s such a privilege being the one to have a chance to teach them a bunch of things. Being a role model, being someone with whom they build trust.
Also walking into their room after they’ve fallen asleep and watching two absolute gigawatt units expend their energy non-stop all day, now completely still (and silent, JFC), and just so peaceful. Their eyes just two lines, rather than two open balls all day. Adorable.
100% accurate.
Once they become teens, the joy is in seeing them realize how much they don’t yet know. It happens rarely, so make sure to document it.
Nothing is more entertaining than being a parent.
There is also nothing to explain the disassociative feeling of having them kidsplain to you things that you taught them, or were actually there for. It’s like, dude, you didn’t know how to wipe your own bum until I taught you. I think I have a handle on 9/11, liberal vs. conservative politics, the Cold War, collapse of the Soviet Union, or how to drive/ shop for groceries/ pay taxes/ vote/feed my dog/apply a bandaid, or whatever thing you think just came into existence because you learned it.
lmao that’s funny. Yeah this is already somewhat the case with my 3 and 4 year old. Even sometimes when they were 2. They’ll tell me things I told them, repeatedly. Things they learn in preschool. Things that they make up on the spot that are completely untrue bullshit. And you’ll just go “oh really, wow, how interesting”. It’s all about sharing with each other at this point lol. Everything doesn’t have to be exactly right or true. I’m trying to remember that because my oldest is a bit of a know-it-all. Trying to prevent further damage to him being a little annoying prick with that behavior. 😆 Especially towards the younger one.
I was out shopping for plants this morning when a little girl wanted to point out the spilled dirt and the hedges they had to me. It was adorable.
My girlfriend and her 5 year old will be moving in with me this summer, I’m so excited to see her learn and grow.
You’ll be a great addition to her life, I’m sure. 💛
you didn’t know how to wipe your own bum until I taught you. I think I have a handle on 9/11, liberal vs. conservative politics
I agree completely with the one exception being the current aging generation that is so completely brainwashed by Murdock et al, that think the working class are the badies, among other misconceptions…
I went through Army training where they intentionally deprive you of sleep for 9 weeks, and I had still never been as tired as I was the first 6 months of parenthood. I didn’t know that you can get that tired and still be alive.
I know, holy shit. And I’ve been a bad grown up and staying up sometimes until 3 am playing games, and the next day I’ll sleep at like 7:30 pm.
I have a friend with kids. I’m also an aunt. I think it’s absolutely fantastic when people can be parents, but I also don’t at all understand how anyone is capable of doing that shit. I’m more than capable of briefly watching and playing with kids for several hours at a time, but not caring for them 24/7 forever.
It’s especially wild to me when parents basically explain to me that they are constantly legitimately going through extreme suffering in what you describe in your first paragraph.
But then they tell me how literally suffering 24/7 is somehow all worth it to them and it makes even less sense. I’m guessing there’s some sort of hormonal thing going on to trick the brain into giving periodic happiness episodes in the middle of what sometimes seems to be flat out torture.
😆 Sounds very accurate to a normal parental experience indeed.
I don’t know if it’s necessarily hormonal. I mean… Everything brain related is, perhaps. I don’t know about such things. But it’s mostly for me about how beautiful it is to have such a purely innocent being put their full trust in you and love you unconditionally (whether by instinct or not). You get to have an extremely tight emotional bond with someone who is completely dependent on you, and that really sharpens your morals. It grows you the fk up. You start having a lot more empathy, even if you thought you had a lot of it before.
It just changes you, completely. Like, I’ve explained it now, in some pretty well-chosen few words, but there’s still this explanatory gap here that will never be bridged by words, only through experience. It’s… hard to explain. 😅
You even feel a little conned, sometimes. Always tired, annoyed, want to be alone, stuff like that. Then when the kids are away for a day or more, “I miss them”. Like what the actual F. 🤡 Am I infested with brain parasites or am I a parent?
My mom told me she used to judge the parents in the shops with screaming kids, we didn’t do that and she thought it was her excellent parenting. She said “Then God gave me Janet” to cure her judgemental hubris, lol.
Nobody is a good parent all the time, we aren’t robots and exhaustion is such a drain on intelligence and compassion. But most of us are good parents enough of the time, thankfully.
Fucking Janet
I’ve got one thing to say and that’s
Dammit Janet
I love youuuuu
And those people in comments that are always shitting on parents? Wait until you see what they look like and how they live. Often the most outrageous comments are made by the most outrageous people.
What do you mean, like finish work then go straight to playing games? I know parents who manage that (somehow!)
I can’t even conceive of the lack of sleep. Like I’ll miss out on a few hours and feel like death, but staying up an entire night? And then having to drive, with a sick kid in the car?
But I mean ultimately I don’t want kids of my own, so I don’t have that internal ember to stoke my motivation. But man, parents must really want it to go through all that I see them doing.
Anyway hope things are going alright for you. One of the nice things is that it can (generally) get easier over time, and then eventually you have a new adult family member that you helped make :)
Making friends as an adult
I’m really struggling with this right now. I’ve joined to some new interest groups, but everyone including myself, seems so guarded, every time I leave feeling like I’ve failed a barrage of social aptitude tests. I feel like so many adults have baggage that by 40 they’re spring loaded to overreact and overthink, they come across as unapproachable. Or maybe I’m awful, which is what keeps kicking around in my head.
You’re not awful. It can be very hard, especially if you aren’t outgoing by nature. Doubly especially if you don’t have an identifiable “thing” for people to know you by.
The best I’ve done is let people know my interests, and my values, and just generally who I am . People who are on the same sine will gravitate to you, while everyone else will rightfully treat you like a weirdo.
Just the cost of doing business, that.
Thank you for your kind words. Logically I know I am not awful as I have friends and try to act with kindness every day. But when you seem to be the common denominator it can be hard not to think you are the reason. I’ve read you aren’t supposed to talk about yourself a lot, that it can be off putting. I try to use approachable body language, actively listen, remember when someone tells me things about themselves, but I am so in my head with social interactions I know I am coming off real weird, like I was raised in a cave. It’ll be ok ; I can always get more dogs to hang out with.
I relate to that. Actually you sound like you’re more on the ball then me. I would describe most of my social interactions as going 50% or lower than an imagined ideal, and even when things go perfectly I’m wracked by “cringe attacks” for weeks. But I would still consider myself to me thriving.
Maybe you don’t relate to the above, but I think social life is just harder for some of us. If you can keep a conversation going by contributing anecdotes and recalling details about the person, that’s incredible! People who can do that seem like superheroes to me.
I’ll wade into a social situation but then just be like uhhh what now? I feel proud if I can just remember someone’s name, let alone remember to talk about something other than myself.
Anyway I don’t feel bad for myself lol. My point is that maybe we do alright. Maybe we’re just overthinkers.
Those cringe attacks are so real! But very true, if we are so so mindful of our interactions we can’t come off as bad as imagined…
Socializing. Things to say in a conversation don’t come to me naturally like they seem to do with other people. Often people remark it’s like talking to a wall because I don’t know how to come up with an answer to their open questions on the fly. And without that, they see no foundation to build friendship on.
Damn, I really relate to this. When I get nervous because I don’t know what to say, I come back with one of my dreaded default responses.
I realized today that people on movies are weird in cute, quirky ways. Most of us are just weird in weird ways.
people on movies are weird in cute, quirky ways
Also scripted and practiced ways.
It helps if you realize that most people are delighted to talk about themselves, if you can find the right angle. They may be passionate about cars, or gardening, travel, their children.
Also realize that most people have spent a lot of time doing whatever they do, and there are things they know about it that few other people do.
For example, someone who works in a laundry might have insights into the laundry business, or the people who come in late at night or the values of different kinds of detergent.
Someone who works at a mall may well know things about them all that you don’t. There may be aspects to their job that they find challenging or painful.
I seem unable to care much about other people (not officially diagnosed on the spectrum, but it seems obvious to most people who know me), but I am interested in the insights they can give me, and I genuinely want them to be happy.
Having a conversation like that also beats sitting around awkwardly.
Hey, can you add a button on that webpage to do [something]?
Like, yeah, adding a button is usually easy, but making it do [the thing] can be quite difficult.
can you add a button that will save my marriage?
Done. Your marriage status is now saved and can conveniently be retrieved in JSON format.
Achieving significant political change, even as an individual with significant political power
Significant political change…for the better.
As we’ve seen all over the world or only takes a relative few to make negative change.
It’s a lot easier to break things than it is to build them.
Culture sadly has to be taken into account or it’s like rowing upstream.
Hayes Carll, in his American Dream song:
“Nothing changes, even when it wants to.”
This SO much. I was involved some years ago with a non profit, run by a guy with significant personal wealth. He burnt through nearly a million bucks, and did manage to get some change to happen , but it was incredibly difficult and incredibly slow, even with the backing and support of a number of other wealthy and connected individuals plus mass public support as well.
Converting a class traitor to socialism
Knitting. Always see people do it on the subway or watching tv without paying attention or trying. Spent a few hours trying to learn once and couldn’t do it.
Crochet for me. It took me forever to figure out how to do it - to even get one simple stitch done. Somehow I figured it out but it’s still really hard
I hear crochet is easier, and more common than knitting. But I haven’t tried either so I could be entirely wrong.
Art
Picture frames.
Looks like an incredibly simple project for a beginner woodworker, doesn’t it? Get some nice wood, rout in a rabbet for the glass/art/backing, rout on a nice decorative profile, then set your miter saw to 45 degrees and make 8 miter cuts, apply some carpenter’s glue then wrap it in a band clamp. What’s so tough?
I’ll tell you what’s tough: the precision with which those miter cuts must be made is exceptionally fussy. Say each cut is a quarter degree off. Well, after eight cuts that’s two degrees of error. Three of the joints will look fine, the last one will look like an axe wound.
The issue isn’t making the cuts at 45°, it’s making them at 45.0000°. Or, more realistically, making them truly complementary.
This same issue applies to moldings around cabinetry, with the added bonus that the carcass of the cabinet won’t let any of the joints close tightly, so they all look like trash.
I’m not a woodworker, but this is the reason I always finish with sanding. You can sand sand sand, check… sand sand sand, check… Just repeat that 500 times and you’re done!
Everyone should have to sand a piece of wood to within spec at least once in their life.
Measure twice; consider a finer grain of sandpaper; sand once.
Repeat 500 times.
Working in a kitchen. Iykyk
I don’t work in a kitchen but notice many people take it for granted. If someone is on crutches, people won’t see the irony in saying “pick up that heavy object and put it in the oven”. Hence all those old graphic kitchen accident commercials.
I don’t understand the crutches part of what you said. I’m not trying to be a dick or anything I just genuinely don’t understand what that means.
They’re like stilts people with leg handicaps use to move around. You may have seen someone use them in school if they injure themselves. If you’re using them, your hands aren’t exactly free enough to toy around in a kitchen setting.
I know what crutches are and how they work, I’ve had to use them before.
If someone is on crutches, people won’t see the irony in saying “pick up that heavy object and put it in the oven”.
This is what I’m confused about. Do you mean people would ask someone using crutches to put something heavy in an oven without taking into account they’re using crutches?
Yeah, you’d be surprised what tasks people don’t have second thoughts about asking about.
That’s wild. I’ve had the opposite problem where people with obvious disabilities get angry because I can’t not help them.
Making an otherwise simple change in a game made by a big company.
There are tons of things that could be done relatively “easy peasy” when it comes to correcting an error in the code or making a change to a number or even adding a thing. What makes it difficult is red tape. You’ve got assigned tasks to do that probably don’t include making that simple fix or adding that thing or changing that number. If it’s just 1 dude in his garage working at a hobby project, it could get done in 10 minutes if he wanted to do it.
Of course this assumes things aren’t done in a way that make doing something that might be easy even harder simply because you don’t have many options to do the things you want within the system you’ve made without dismantling part of it and getting into a whole mess of other shit to make the “simple” change. Sometimes it be like that, too.
Perfect example is changing text in a game (maybe 10 mins) vs adding emoji to text in a game ( weeks?) does the text engine support emoji. Do we need to add support for all arbitrary images? How big can the emoji be? So many issues come out of “simple” requests.
red tape
I just make the change and put it in for review and then move on with my life… most the time its not turned away if its a good change. Even if there wasn’t any task or discussion before hand, and if it’s small enough I can just do it quick then I won’t be disappointed if people want it done a different way. At least for me it feels like people like it when I just make a decision and solve the problem instead of bogging them down with discussing everything before hand
But yeah lots of times “simple” changes are not actually simple in the system as it already exists… and that can be frustrating but thats software…
Removing the tamper seal on a bottle of ketchup
Use your teeth.
Or pierce it with a knife and carefully remove the halves. I hate accidentally bruising my gums.
Based on my recent failings: apparently hitting a little white ball into a hole.
I don’t know if I should be making a golf joke or a billiards joke
If you’re hitting a white ball into the hole in billiards, then you’re doing it wrong.
Golf is a beautiful walk in the park, ruined by a tiny white ball.
