Hey everyone!
Long time no post… The Cinny client for Matrix no longer functions even after updating, so I have lost access to the chat.
Anyways, I have been thinking a lot lately about the amount of awkward silences I’ve run into with others. It feels like some people are significantly easier to hold a conversation with, as they themselves are invested just as I am in our topics and dialogue. However, it almost feels like the other person is attempting a strange power dynamic with purposeful silences, staring, or otherwise conversations going downhill.
I’m not trying to be overly dramatic or to blame others, I just want to be as pleasant as possible for both the other person and myself. After all, good conversation can be wonderful!
Hoping to start a discussion with this nebulous afterthought and maybe get some ideas going for conversation skills and building social intuition!
I’m by no means an expert, but something I lean on a lot is two key assumptions:
- People tend to talk about the things they want to talk about
- They expect everyone to be aware of 1. and to converse accordingly.
What this means is that if you set a topic of conversation, you are hinting that you want to delve deeper into that topic. This can be hard if you’re ND because sometimes you just think out loud surface level thoughts that you don’t actually think would make a good topic of conversation. It also means that if you want to talk about something, often the best way to start that is by asking a question to the other person where your answer to that question is the thing you want to talk about. People often reflect a question back at the asker after answering it. So for example, if I want to talk about a movie I watched recently, I might say “did you see any good movies lately?”
This is great advice! I’ll try to implement it over the next couple of times I’m chatting with these same people. Oftentimes, I find it hard to gauge what the other person might “want” to talk about. This can be challenging with people who are more shy or not necessarily big conversationalists from what I’ve experienced.
My follow-up would be… How do you engage in a dialogue? Do you adhere to any principles as to how long you are talking, the uniqueness of words that you use to describe your ideas…? How do you balance what you’re going to say with active listening? Because sometimes I feel like I attentively listen TOO much, and I’m just there nodding and dispensing a digitized voice-line of “wow!” “awesome” “fun” “cool” “Oh that’s interesting” and so forth…
Because sometimes I feel like I attentively listen TOO much, and I’m just there nodding and dispensing a digitized voice-line of “wow!” “awesome” “fun” “cool” “Oh that’s interesting” and so forth…
That’s fine, but I assume you mean that you’re not sure when to say something more substantive than a simple affirmation that you’re following along. A couple of other tips I’ve picked up that help with this:
- When someone stops talking, that usually means it’s your turn to talk.
- The default way to keep a conversation going (assuming you’ve been listening attentively) is to ask something prompted by something the person emphasized when they were talking. If nothing seemed emphasized, you can use the last thing the person said as a default, or else whichever part of what they said gave you an idea of something to say.
So for example if they are talking about their plans for the weekend and mention that on Saturday they are visiting their parents and on Sunday they are going to the beach, you have two prompts to build on there. You could ask “where do your parents live?”, “How often do you visit them?”, “which beach are you going to?”, etc.
Generally try to ask open ended questions rather than yes/no questions. And remember my first tips that the question you ask is also a way of conveying where you want the conversation to go. So if you don’t want to talk about your own parents, maybe it’s better to ask about the beach. And don’t be afraid to say “me too” and then if they say something like “really?” then it’s your turn to talk for a bit as you relate the thing you have in common with them.
Oftentimes, I find it hard to gauge what the other person might “want” to talk about. This can be challenging with people who are more shy or not necessarily big conversationalists from what I’ve experienced.
This is a bit trickier. It depends a lot on the context of why you’re talking to them. It’s helpful to have a roster of icebreaker questions that are socially acceptable to ask as the beginning of a conversation. Stuff like “what do you do for work?”, “What do you like to do for fun?”, etc.
That’s fine, but I assume you mean that you’re not sure when to say something more substantive than a simple affirmation that you’re following along. A couple of other tips I’ve picked up that help with this:
After implementing what you’ve said in the past couple of my interactions, I noticed that people were more likely to smile and attentively listen after they’ve shared something themselves. Eliciting that initial interest from the other person removed a lot of the awkward silences, as it was filled with them talking more than myself. As I’ve been focusing more on what the person emphasizes, I’m able to find out more about what excites them to talk about, so I’m able to draw more attention to their interests and make them feel heard. Very good advice here.
Generally try to ask open ended questions rather than yes/no questions. And remember my first tips that the question you ask is also a way of conveying where you want the conversation to go. So if you don’t want to talk about your own parents, maybe it’s better to ask about the beach. And don’t be afraid to say “me too” and then if they say something like “really?” then it’s your turn to talk for a bit as you relate the thing you have in common with them.
To solidify this advice… Are there any “baskets” that questions generally could be sorted into? The open-ended type sometimes falls flat if I ask it from the “wrong” basket. Exactly as you mentioned with not wanting to talk about your own parents, but asking about them anyways and then not having much to say directly afterwards. Not to neg on details, but would it be unhealthy to think a certain amount of steps “ahead” in a conversation? This has been on my mind lately, but I’m not sure how to describe it other than I’d like to engage the person and get them to think about things rather than be a captive listener or have them monologue about themselves.
I feel like I don’t understand eye contact or body language too well. We all know the awkward feeling of seeing someone far away in a hallway. I’ve never quite got this one down… If I know the person, it’s usually okay to make some strange handmotions and tease a bit as you get closer. But sometimes, I can tell the other person doesn’t want to look at me, but will raise their head to say hi as we are within 5 ish feet of each other. A strange autistic detail, but I just want to be more charismatic in general, and appreciate you taking the time to write these comments!
No problem! I’m glad I could help!
I’m also bad at the nonverbal stuff, so I can’t help you too much there.
but would it be unhealthy to think a certain amount of steps “ahead” in a conversation?
Kinda, yes. Conversation is improvisational. If it seems like you are trying to steer it too hard in one direction, people can get annoyed. There is a natural flow to conversations which is very much in the moment. If you are thinking three steps ahead, that’s less brainpower that can go toward listening to what the other person is saying presently, which means you won’t be able to follow the conversational cues I outlined in my first couple comments.
I’m not sure how to describe it other than I’d like to engage the person and get them to think about things rather than be a captive listener or have them monologue about themselves.
That’s… not really the purpose of typical NT conversation. The purpose of conversation isn’t to make another person think, it’s to build a social rapport with them. In many ways, the actual content of the conversation is irrelevant.
Thinking happens automatically when the topic is something the brain wants to think about. You can’t force interest. That’s why so many of the tips I’ve given are about following the things the other person seems interested in talking about. The basic idea of a conversation is to gently probe different topics until you find one that both people want to talk about, and then talk about that.
The act of two people both conversing about something that makes their brains light up naturally creates a positive association between their conversation partner and the subject. This is how NTs become increasingly friendly and build social bonds.
Autists sort of do this too, but we tend to skip past the probing part and go straight to talking about the deepest aspects of our own favourite topics. If the other person shows an interest in conversing at that level, then we can make fast friends. But this often only works with other NDs.
NTs view this autistic approach as conversationally selfish because the back-and-forth of conversation is inherently fun for the NT brain. So the act of skipping straight to infodumping about a special interest feels to NTs like you don’t actually care about having a conversation with them, you just want to lecture about your interest. NTs want to feel like they are being spoken with, not spoken to.
So for example, if I want to talk about a movie I watched recently, I might say “did you see any good movies lately?”
This is great advice! It sets the context so they know you want to talk about movies you enjoyed which helps to know if you saying something about the movie is a good or bad thing in your opinion.
Going directly to talking about the details of the movie or something it does means they are going to be either assuming context or even excessive staring while they actively think about what you are saying.
