
How Can I Turn Small Talk Into a Conversation? - rmah
http://lifehacker.com/5913355/how-can-i-turn-small-talk-into-a-conversation
======
kjhughes
Having a genuine interest in the other party makes all the difference. (Lack
sincerity going in and you'll sound like a polished politician at best.) When
you really care about the person you're meeting, your external focus leaves
you no room to worry what they think of you -- an all too common distraction
-- and leads to a self-reinforcing confidence that aids the exchange more than
any pre-scripted techniques can.

~~~
tomjen3
But what if you don't have much interest in the other party? Most people are
not interesting to me.

~~~
cjy
I used to feel that way. But, after some contemplation, I realized how
conceited that is. People are so multidimensional and have such varying
experiences that it is arrogant to think that there is nothing interesting
about someone you have just met. They may not be good at communicating and
they may seem to be boring or shallow. But, they almost certainly have
knowledge and experiences that are foreign to you. The trick is finding what
they are. If someone can't find anything interesting about another human
being, it probably says more about their lack of wonder than about the
target's "interestingness" (although sometimes communication is the problem
too). I really like watching Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe to see him converse
with the people he is working with. If you were small talking with these
people in the dentist office they might seem boring. But, Rowe is able to
bring out their interestingness.

~~~
jcc80
Same here, although I didn't contemplate the change. It just sort of happened
somewhere in my late 20s. Late bloomer I guess? Always _thought_ I was smart
and understood people. But, now realize I missed plenty by not really getting
it and finding what was interesting about others.

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jrockway
I just dive right in with "So, how about those crazy Republicans!" If they're
a Republican, they'll be offended and go away. If they're not, they'll talk my
ear off.

The key is to offend people early so as not to waste time getting to know
someone you'll hate.

</advice dog>

~~~
berntb
I live in Europe, here we have more left wing fanatics and fewer right wing
fanatics.

That said, some of the True believers (politics, religion, programming
languages, etc) are the nicest people. As long as you can handle non-
rationality.

(Also, being Swedish originally, I'd rather die than offend someone in person;
the internet is different.)

Edit: How about an ASCII face for "advice dog" comments? What I commented on
could have been said by lots of cool people I know (they might not know me,
though :-) ).

~~~
dkersten
How about down voting "advice dog" and other _meme_ comments lest HN be
overrun by memes?

~~~
unimpressive
Your comment reminded of me of a hypothesis I once read about Fermi's paradox,
that it may not be _physical_ infection that extraterrestrials would worry
about catching from humans, but _memetic_ infection.

Same principle here.

~~~
Drbble
You just described the climax of the movie Independence Day.

------
personlurking
"When you share that little piece of your story you'll get one of two
responses: a question about how it was or a disinterested, "Oh cool."

In regards to this, speaking to the underlying subject (sports, as per the
article's kayaking example) and expanding from there can open more doors than
simply mentioning a particular sport which few people do. So, expand kayaking
to sports or what is so great about kayaking (ie, "it's great to get out of
the office."), therefore the other person can have more things to talk with
you about than just kayaking.

This goes back to something, of all things, I overheard on Dr. Phil when the
show came on the air. The topic was about getting to the heart of a problem
and the "hack" he spoke of went like this,

So, you're middle-aged and thinking of getting a red sports car. Ask yourself
why you really want it. The answer might be, "because I want to feel young."
Well then, what you want is not the sports car but the underlying feeling it
can give you. Now, start over and ask yourself why you want to feel young.

Rinse, repeat until you find out what you really are after and I'll bet there
are many more avenues to your destination than just getting a sports car.

~~~
Drbble
That's called the Five Whys in business school, root cause analysis in
engineering, and life with a two year old.

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AznHisoka
I just start by saying something outrageous and politically incorrect. I also
go in with the mindset that nothing really matters in the long run. life is
absurd, so just be absurd

~~~
gliese1337
The most important conversation of my life (as it led directly to my eventual
marriage) started out with a total stranger (girl) walking up to me (guy) and
saying

    
    
       I see you have awesome stuff in your pants.
    

Referring, of course, to the multiple sets of poi equipment I had stuffed into
my pockets. This started a conversation with the instigator and another girl
next to me. Once the instigator left (after about 30 seconds), my continuing
happiness was ensured by the exceptionally suave line

    
    
       So... do you wanna keep talking or what?
    

So, ridiculousness is proven to work in real-life situations. :) You may just
end up making somebody else's life.

~~~
Drbble
Poi?

~~~
gliese1337
An originally-Maori artform involving spinning weights on strings, which has
in recent years vastly expanded beyond its New Zealand origins to cross-breed
with club spinning, staff spinning, glowsticking and various other performance
arts. See <http://www.playpoi.com> or <http://www.homeofpoi.com/> .

------
jakejake
I think a simple rule is to get the other person to do all the talking by
asking them questions. Because most people tend to naturally talk about
themselves you may have to force yourself in the opposite direction. If you're
fairly conscious about keeping the other person talking, then you're less
likely to go off on a boring rant about yourself.

~~~
capsule_toy
The best conversations I've had tend to have very few questions, and more
comments going back and forth. Almost all conversations start with questions
but the goal should be to reach a point where you aren't asking any questions
at all.

~~~
jakejake
Absolutely, I suppose I meant that you should try to be aware and get the
other person talking. In order to do that you need to find out what that
person is interested in. Drilling them with questions isn't really the right
approach, rather just steering the conversation in a direction that the other
person seems to like.

The very best conversation is going to be when you both happen to be
interested in the same topic, in which case there's not much effort or social
skill involved. That's easy.

The difficult part is when you're at a situation like the OP mentioned with a
lot of "small talk" going on and you are struggling to talk with people,
feeling awkward, etc. Perhaps you want to have a friendly conversation with
your grandma who is not into computers. Perhaps you're trying to network at a
corporate event or you're just trying to chat up a girl/guy, etc. People who
are very social are masters of making other people feel that they are
interesting. They are usually very skilled at getting _you_ talking.

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RockofStrength
To turn small talk into a conversation, switch from objective facts to
subjective opinions.

~~~
Drbble
Indeed, smalltalk is object oriented.

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sown
Do people really do this?

I kind of wish I had known this before I went to YC's Work At a Startup event.

~~~
gruseom
Load up on gimmicks before talking to people? No doubt some do. But it sounds
awfully stilted, and I think you're better off without it.

~~~
sown
Sounds like a potential job for future Google Glass projects:
[http://www.counselheal.com/articles/1883/20120526/people-
smi...](http://www.counselheal.com/articles/1883/20120526/people-smile-when-
frustrated-researchers-develop-computer.htm)

------
nikunjk
Probably, the most important people skill that needs to be learned in this age

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ZanderEarth32
Become the facilitator of the conversation, like an interviewer. Listen and
ask questions. This works because most people enjoy talking about themselves
or their interests.

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calinet6
Well Smalltalk might not be the best language for a Conversation
implementation. You might try a more modern interpreter like Ruby or Python if
you want a more universally understandable connection.

~~~
ashleyf
I clicked the link thinking it would be a REPL for Smalltalk :)

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bpm140
Ask questions.

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billpatrianakos
The article has it spot on but it can be simplified into two very important
ideas:

1\. Keep asking questions until you hit a nerve and find something you have in
common with the person. It also works the opposite way. You can find a point
of disagreement and talk about that. Nothing heavy, something as simple as
"What? You hate country music? I love it! Why don't you like it?" can turn
into a full on friendly conversation just the same as "Oh you work with Save
the Whales too? How did you like that last event they had?" can.

2\. Get a life. If you're a one-dimensional person who's all about one single
thing you can't relate to anyone even if they have that one thing in common. I
can talk to someone about web development for a long time but eventually
talking about the same thing is tiresome. The more life experiences you have
the more you can talk about and the easier it is to find things in or not in
common with someone else.

The rest on that list are just variations on that theme. If you get a life and
ask a lot of questions even the most introverted person can easily turn small
talk into large talk (made up term).

------
smalltalk
Wait, this wasn't about a programming language?

~~~
notJim
It's a domain-specific language mostly[1] geared towards communicating with
other humans. Incredibly expressive if you can master it, but the grammar is
_insane_.

[1]: There have been some misguided attempts to appropriate for other
purposes, but these are largely ignored in the linked article. cf.
<http://cukes.info/>

