Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

[Dynam0]

Re: Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

What specific personality traits would you like to project while conversing with a person/people?

List

There's only so many traits you can exude from conversation though...some are best shown through observation and a deeper relationship with the person.

In conversation you can be calm, assertive, friendly, agreeable, witty, sarcastic, flirtatious, cold, irritable, thoughtful, bubbly, concise, eccentric, rude, melodramatic etc. so from a more specific list like this, which traits would you like to show?

[Cavernio]

Re: Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

I think it might help if I knew why you aren't conveying what you want to convey already.

Surely not ALL your thoughts are nice, kind and bubbly? Is it that you have issues speaking the thoughts you have beyond kind things aloud? Or is it that you find your thoughts aren't really on the conversation in the first place?

From your OP, giving the Gilmore girls example, it seems as if you might simply have nothing to say about a topic. If this is the case, and you truly want to convey more personality in your conversations, you're going to have to cultivate a personality that has opinions about things like movie genres and other pop culture phenomenon. I mean, if you don't do this, you won't have an opinion to share about topics that so often come up in social situations, and so you're left looking vapid or derisive (if you say something like 'this is boring').

What about when you get into a conversation about something you really, really like and DO have opinions about? Do you show personality then?

[Cavernio]

Re: Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

Also, Gilmore girls, although a great comfort show that I love, is full of neurotic personalities. You don't want to be like any of the people in it for real :-p

[MixMasterLar]

Re: Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

Guys, we might all have to get into chat here soon with Drizzle and see exactly what she's talking about.

[drizzleRomanceGirl]

Re: Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

I think it might help if I knew why you aren't conveying what you want to convey already.

Surely not ALL your thoughts are nice, kind and bubbly? Is it that you have issues speaking the thoughts you have beyond kind things aloud? Or is it that you find your thoughts aren't really on the conversation in the first place?

From your OP, giving the Gilmore girls example, it seems as if you might simply have nothing to say about a topic. If this is the case, and you truly want to convey more personality in your conversations, you're going to have to cultivate a personality that has opinions about things like movie genres and other pop culture phenomenon. I mean, if you don't do this, you won't have an opinion to share about topics that so often come up in social situations, and so you're left looking vapid or derisive (if you say something like 'this is boring').

What about when you get into a conversation about something you really, really like and DO have opinions about? Do you show personality then?

My thoughts are on the conversation, and I do show more of my personality when the topic is something I'm really interested in, or when I'm talking with my immediate family. However, I don't show much of my personality beyond being kind when talking with strangers or people I don't know very well.

[Emanresu13]

Re: Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

My thoughts are on the conversation, and I do show more of my personality when the topic is something I'm really interested in, or when I'm talking with my immediate family. However, I don't show much of my personality beyond being kind when talking with strangers or people I don't know very well.

i think you're fine,

when it comes to people you aren't familiar with you can't just go all out unless you really don't care about possibly offending them,

and since you try to be a nice person you don't fall into that category.


also in your gilmore girls example they all know each other very well

also what Cavernio said about them being crazy

[Litodude]

Re: Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

ok how did this thread go for 60+ posts really just look at the respnses she's confused

[Litodude]

Re: Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

I think it might help if I knew why you aren't conveying what you want to convey already.

Surely not ALL your thoughts are nice, kind and bubbly? Is it that you have issues speaking the thoughts you have beyond kind things aloud? Or is it that you find your thoughts aren't really on the conversation in the first place?

From your OP, giving the Gilmore girls example, it seems as if you might simply have nothing to say about a topic. If this is the case, and you truly want to convey more personality in your conversations, you're going to have to cultivate a personality that has opinions about things like movie genres and other pop culture phenomenon. I mean, if you don't do this, you won't have an opinion to share about topics that so often come up in social situations, and so you're left looking vapid or derisive (if you say something like 'this is boring').

What about when you get into a conversation about something you really, really like and DO have opinions about? Do you show personality then?

^^^^

[choof]

Re: Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

ok how did this thread go for 60+ posts really just look at the respnses she's confused

lel

[andy-o24]

Re: Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

she's confused

Of course she's confused. That's the reason she made this thread. Dynam0-'s post addressed the core of her question. And looking at the title, it seems she wants to know exactly how to do converse in any conversation with anyone about anything. Giving that information is impossible, so we can only give guidelines that she has to put into practice and see what works.

-o24

[Cavernio]

Re: Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

Steer the conversation towards something you're interested in then, or try to weave in something that applies to you into the topic somehow. Actually, in the rare occasions I find myself with nothing to say and I really, really want to say something (more often than not these days I just opt for silence, awkward or not...) I find myself wracking my brain for something neat or interesting or unique that I can shed on the conversation. This invariably takes time though, and it at least seems that when I put pressure on myself this way, it's kinda hit or miss if I get the outcome I'm looking for. More often I'll just find that I in fact don't have much in common with that person. I don't take it as a sleight of my own interaction skills, but rather simply see me and the other person as not being very compatible people. That I'm not compatible with many people is fine by me.

When I think about the most social people I've had as friends, it's kinda impressive how they always have something fairly unique to add to any conversation. But I think this boils down a lot to what they find interesting. I think they are people who take an interest in local and popular events and popular ideas, etc, or people who truly enjoy small-talk and they truly enjoy that glimpse into the other person's personality.

Personally, it sounds to me like you are perhaps too caught up on making good small-talk. You are caught up on wanting the ability to convey something more than what you feel, and I'm with a lot of others here in that I don't think you should be striving for what you are striving for. But that's not the answer you want obviously. The person you should be talking to on ffr is Arch0wl, buddy lives his life creating new personas to fit his surroundings.

Ennh, I really don't think I'm the right person to be going to for advice on how to socialize properly. I more or less do my own thing, and right now that involves very little real-world interaction with people. I find it pretty hard to open up enough to strangers or acquaintances in-person. Now that I think about it, I'm really, really bad at getting past the acquaintance stage. I don't think this is an unusual phenomenon though. I feel, rather, that it's unusual that I don't get some sort of instant rapport with people as much as other people do.

For some reason I felt like making a list of all the different sorts of stranger-stranger interactions I see.

-Some people when they meet you for the first time will get into surprisingly honest, personal things. That happened to me on the bus the other day, and it led me to speak quite honestly too. I didn't care to be their friend afterwards, but it was rather nice all the same.
-Another pretty common thing I see, 2 seemingly strangers talk and one of them is dominating the conversation while the other person just nods and smiles politely.
-Then there's what seems to be the most common sort of stranger-stranger interaction where one or both of them feel the need to acknowledge the other's presence by saying something vapid about the weather. Sometimes, one of the people will attempt to strike up more of a conversation about some pop topic, creating something like the previously mentioned point, and most often the other person will make polite conversation, but not really be into it.
-Then there's the flirt, the person who is attracted to someone else who will generally say something quite pertinent to the situation at hand about the individual they're attracted to. Like, for instance, the guy in line behind me at the coffee shop who, upon hearing that I had ordered a decaf, made a comment to me along the lines of 'I'll take all the caffeine you don't want', and then gave me a winning smile. (It took me quite awhile to figure out that most men, when they strike up a conversation with me, will be flirting.)
-The sort of stranger conversation that can be the start of a friendship though, is usually one that happens in a situation where both people share a common interest. Like if you play a sport or sing a in a choir or something, you already know that you both share a common interest, and you'll no doubt talk about that interest at practice or wherever it is that you see each other. The key for the conversation is not that you are both partaking in an event that you both like, it's that you both have an interest in what you're doing, and conversation about it will flow more naturally for both of you. What follows from that will require a bit of social skill as you try and figure out if the other person has other, similar interests to yours. This can happen in any setting, but having that commonality is supposed to alleviate some anxiety you might have, and will maybe make you truly want to know more about that person. You're also likely to have other things in common, because that's just how people are.
-Last but not least is the sort of interaction that for no reason that you know of, you'll suddenly hit off. Like...you can make a joke or be sarcastic about something and they respond in kind. This does not happen to me very often, but the one time I remember it was when I was donating blood and I happened upon an old classmate who I'd never really been friends with, but not someone who'd teased me or something. We both had to wait, like, 20min before leaving, and so we struck up a conversation. She just seemed like, someone I could honestly talk to about how I feel about some things, and it turned out that we had stuff in common. (Now I'm still not her friend right now, but that's on me and it's a different issue.)

Of course, throughout all of these interactions, you'll see something in someone else you won't like, and you won't care to interact with them more.

[Emanresu13]

Re: Help with Understanding How I would Respond in Any Given Conversation

everything Cavernio just said is pretty spot on