Do we know how to converse? (From Bucks Free Press)

The Art of Conversation

6:00pm Sunday 24th April 2011

• Print
• Email
• Comments(3)

I’d like to do away with small talk and those agonising one-way sessions with self-absorbed individuals. Maybe it’s my age or my personality (yes, I do have one) but there are things which have been confirmed to me hundreds of times.

I know we all want better weather, more money, nice neighbours, roads that aren’t congested, truth in advertising, good food, clothes that fit, other people’s children and pets to not bother us and for all our plans to go well.

We don’t want queues, violence, ill health, injustice, things that stop working after two months, spoiled youth, stupid peers, crime, dirt or natural disasters.

I suppose I’d like this to be a given in society. What I’d like is to meet someone for the first time and be able to ask what their fears are, what good they’ve done today, whether they’ve broken the law (yes, and be prepared to be asked the same).

Think how different our relationships might be. Wouldn’t the process of making and dropping friends be much more efficient? If I met someone new and asked, ‘Hi, what would you like to be doing?’ or ‘Do you believe the news?’ There. Straight in to the essentials.

I suppose if I’m honest I wouldn’t believe someone who said they had precisely the job they wanted. Especially if they worked for Southern Electric customer service. The other thing is I think it would put most people’s backs up. Why? Because it would feel invasive, rude or just odd.

A male friend of a friend had gone to a party with his squash club. Something he doesn’t often do. Mostly men. Mostly men he’d played against during his long membership at the club. He said most men spent the entire evening asking each other whether they had a drink, whether they wanted a drink whether they’d finished their drink or whether they wanted another. It went no further all night.

This to me is the reverse of connecting with people. It’s an avoidance of intimacy. It’s a social cloak. It’s hiding.

Now I know some readers will snort disdainfully. ‘We don’t want to get inside each other’s heads you know.’ Well I do.

Surely our DNA hasn’t evolved those delicate differences between us and the composition of an elm tree so we can all petrify in small talk. We may as well be trees.

Life’s short. I want to involve myself in people and know them. I want us to share knowledge, exchange real thoughts and have an influence on each other. Small talk (for longer than ten minutes) seems to be a barrier against intimacy and true connections.

I know I’d be challenged if someone came up to me and asked, ‘When did you last have a moral conflict? And why?’ I’d be silenced for a while but God! It could lead to a conversation that’s explosive and revealing.

But maybe that’s what we’re all terrified of. Revealing ourselves.

To be exposed is to be vulnerable I suppose. But surely there’s a time when we can move out from behind those conversational shields and show ourselves to the world.

The other thing is people who dominate the conversation. I encounter them a lot – it’s like a social sickness. Me, me, me.

I’d almost say it’s a new neurosis, an emotional starvation which leads people to binge on someone else’s (metaphorical) biscuits and leave none for the host.

This too means conversation is stunted. Cut off in its prime. Which means that getting to know someone is impossible.

Both the small talk and the compulsive, self-obsessed talker strangle the possibility of a healthy conversation.

Where does this enforced distance come from? Have most people been kept at a distance by their own parents? Where do we learn this peculiar behaviour?

The male friend put it quite well. He said that as he talks he can often see people’s faces glaze over; they’re not listening, just waiting for when the conversation comes back to them. It’s something I recognise.

I wonder how to revive the art of conversation.

Moving from endless small talk or machine-gun type verbal cleansing (that’s what it often feels like) to tackling big subjects and practising listening and interest means we leave our safety zone; the place we feel comfortable in, where we define ourselves in very trite ways (what we’re having done to our house, where we might holiday, how expensive petrol is) and venture out into uncharted waters.

The thought excites and terrifies me. Equally terrifying is the thought of living another few decades and having to endure more of the same as a way of evading truth and human contact.

But then again, many people I meet find it hard to understand that I still use my maiden name and am not much interested in mobile phones. So what chance is there of us chewing over our fears and high points together?

I’m as much to blame as anyone. So in the net queue I join, I’m going to ask the person in front, ‘What’s the most interesting conversation you’ve ever had?’ I’ll let you know

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here