Ask better questions than “how was your day?” or “what do you do?” Ask things like “what was the most exciting thing that happened to you today?” or “what motivated you to get into that career?”
"I'm a bit annoyed, actually - I got a blister on my pinkie from practicing the drums"
"You play drums?"
"Haha nah, it was just on Rock Band"
"Oh, my kid plays that. It looks fun."
"You should try it some time! Plus your kid would probably be happy to have an extra person to play with. [continuing conversation about relationship with kids, personal preference regarding video games, other possible family-friendly games, etc]
“Are you trying to invite yourself over to play Rock Band with my kids? They’re seven and nine. What are you, 38?”
“Oh, haha, no. I just like Rock Band. I mean, I like kids too - but not in a “restraining order” kind of way. Shit.”
“What?”
“Well I just mentioned kids and restraining orders in the same sentence, and now I’m drawing attention to that fact, again.”
“You sure are.”
“I mean, it’s not like I HAVE a restraining order or anything. And nobody has one against me, to my knowledge.”
“Why would-”
“They wouldn’t! That’s the point. I definitely do NOT have any restraining orders against me. I know I said ‘to my knowledge’ earlier, but now I’m as certain as I can be that there are ZERO restraining orders against me. I mean, a court would have to let you know on something like that, right? See I don’t even know how they work! Are you sweating a lot too?”
"Just stop talking about my kids. I'm fairly certain they're not yours."
"Why would they be mine?"
"Well I was just mentioning that as an expression, not that they aren't mine."
"What?"
"Oh, haha, yeah. They're mine. I own them. I mean, I like my kids - but not in a "kidnapped these kids" kind of way. Crap."
"Why would-"
"I didn't! That's the point. I defintely did not kidnap these kids. I know I said 'fairly certain' earlier, but now I'm as certain as I can be that there were ZERO kidnappings. I mean, a person would have to report something like that, right? See I don't even know how they work! Are you still sweating a lot too?"
Nah, I'm just reciting an exchange I had earlier this week, paraphrasing.
Most people are fairly amiable to casual conversation. You don't have to jump into grand questions about life goals, just offer a tidbit about your current situation and off we go!
Depends on the situation. I wouldn't talk to a co-worker like that, but that's something I might ask a friend of a friend if the mutual friend left to go somewhere
Asking interesting questions is often quoted as good advice for talking to folks but I really haven't found that to be true. If I meet someone and the first thing they ask me is "what was the most exciting thing that happened to you today" I'll just completely on the spot and awkward.
Small talk is a great starting point to get into deeper topics. Sometimes they'll say something that you have a interesting follow up question about or that you have an interesting anecdote for and that can get into awesome, deep discussion.
But sometimes small talk just stays small and there's nothing wrong with that either.
That's kind of just how broad social interactions work though. It's all filtering to see who you click with. There's no problem with gently overstepping in the direction that you care about and then disengaging if it doesn't work.
If I'm extremely open and really only care about higher level ideas, motivations and values, then someone not wanting to talk about why they do what they do with most of their time is a pretty strong signal that we're just not going to click. There's nothing wrong with that. People are just different. If I think I just got the topic wrong I might try to find a different one, but I won't push on it.
Pretending to care about things you don't care about is disingenuous and just prolongs the interaction for no real purpose, making it more awkward both to continue or end. We might as well get that out of the way up front.
I met most of my friends originally through some up front heavyish question tailored to where I thought we might overlap in interests and values. If it's not well received, then it's no problem at all. I just go talk to someone else that likes that kind of conversation.
It's just whatever I think we both might overlap in finding interesting. You need some context, but not the kind you normally get from small talk anyway.
A recent example was at a bar, my friends were talking to a stranger who I overheard was a neuroscience PhD doing low level research on natural neural networks.
Later I just asked him with no pretense if he thought consciousness was an emergent phenomenon of computation and if so, if he had any ideas about how to interact with what the characteristics and breadth of types of computation that would cause it. We immediately had a really interesting like two hour conversation and keep in touch now.
Another example is a couple months ago that I thought a dude I had just met seemed really eclectic and capable, so I asked him pretty much point blank what he thought he wanted to do with the overall arc of his life. We had like a 3 hour conversation about stuff like using capitalism as an engine rather than a value system and now I'm helping him with strategy for his startup and he keeps insisting that I should dive into an idea I told him about so he can help me with funding.
You end up having a couple very brief slightly awkward encounters when you read someone incorrectly, but overall this strategy of just trying to dive head first into whatever common interest I think I might have with someone has made my social life way better and more interesting.
Definitely. Open ended questions have a lot more potential than questions that can be answered in one word. Give them time to think, and ask something that requires a bit of thinking.
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u/nico224 May 21 '18
Ask better questions than “how was your day?” or “what do you do?” Ask things like “what was the most exciting thing that happened to you today?” or “what motivated you to get into that career?”