Having an interesting conversation with someone you just met. I see people do this shit all the time and they make it look like it comes naturally but every time I'm in that situation it is so difficult. Its like a series of quick time events that im severely underprepared for
I learned to combat this with 3 simple questions:
What kind of job do you do? (Or study)
Where do you live?
Do you have any kids, dog,...
Be interrested in their answers and add some simple follow-up questions that show you are listening. Add some content of your own as a follow-up.
Posing that first question can be a bit weird, but the rest is as simple as it sounds.
Be interested in their answers
Yeah, so, that's where I usually drop the ball. What if I'm just... not?
That's where I rely on "fake it till you make it".
What if, completely hypothetically of course, I'm pushing 40 and only moderately depressed but still prefer the company of my dogs to most people?
What kind of dogs do you have?
Sweet, dumb, wonderful shelter mutts.
What are we using to post videos to Lemmy at this point? It still doesn't seem to work from Voyager.
Have you taught them any tricks?
Testing a direct upload into the the web browser:
Nice. What browser/OS?
Brave, android
As a general rule, I don't like apps. I like to have as much web traffic as possible routed through my browser, which I can then use to block cookies, trackers, etc. Generally speaking, apps are much worse on privacy.
Yeah I'm with you there in most cases but I can't get videos to upload with anything. Five different devices, four different OSes, three different browsers, two different Lemmy instances, and even a VPN to bypass my own firewall and yet I still get nothing but JSON partridge in a fucking pear tree parsing errors when trying to post videos.
Anyway, here are some pictures.
FWIW, I would choose to hang out with your dogs over most other humans, too.
Your dogs are so cute! I love the upside downness. How often do you groom them? They look very clean. I've got a hairy dog and I really should be taking her to the groomers every week, but it's so expensive.
Thanks! The only thing I do for them regularly in terms of grooming is to cut their nails. They get baths if they're dirty or smelly but they've never had a haircut. Short-haired breeds are awesome.
It really depends on the person, you have to have some sort of jumping off point. Whether that is sharing something in common with someone or having cool hobbies.
I think this is the biggest myth of conversation. People always tell you to search for people whom you share something in common with, but the reality is that nearly everyone shares something in common and there’s no reason to go searching for it.
The key to a good conversation with a stranger is to initially do two things: 1. Ask details about the stranger and 2. Intertwine that with yourself in some way. You don’t even need to share this part.
Good conversations have these things I’ll call “footholds” where you intentionally give each other details shortly after meeting in order to create those ties in conversation. If you ask where someone is from, you should shortly offer up where you are from as well. Or if you ask about a hobby, offer a light comparison to your own.
Once you have enough of these footholds, the conversation should flow freely. If it ever doesn’t, ask the stranger more about themselves. And trust me, just be interested in what they say.
I sometimes use the alphabet method. When a conversation gets stuck I think of words starting with a and form a question from that.
Example : angler fish, amazon, aeroplane
-> do you like travelling? What's your dream destination? Do you like the deep sea/ocean/swimming?
I think for short ask questions, actually listen to their answers and follow up or share your own experiences. Now you're conversating.
Me in my head: Start a conversation, think of words that start with a.... Aaaaaaaaaaaaa....
Me out loud: We come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow
Everyone, including me: WTF!?
I'm not perfect at it, but what helps me is that I genuinely love to learn and I like to take the opportunity to learn from people when I meet them. I just need to find an entry point (job, hobby, something the person is knowledgeable about) and then I start asking questions, and applying the limited knowledge I might already have on the subject.
With short interactions with people that are working (supermarket, bank, restaurant, phone assistance) I usually go for empathy, and overall just being nice. When one comes to me I go for a joke to brighten their day a bit.
Having an interesting conversation with someone you just met. I see people do this shit all the time and they make it look like it comes naturally but every time I'm in that situation it is so difficult. Its like a series of quick time events that im severely underprepared for
I learned to combat this with 3 simple questions:
Be interrested in their answers and add some simple follow-up questions that show you are listening. Add some content of your own as a follow-up.
Posing that first question can be a bit weird, but the rest is as simple as it sounds.
Yeah, so, that's where I usually drop the ball. What if I'm just... not?
That's where I rely on "fake it till you make it".
What if, completely hypothetically of course, I'm pushing 40 and only moderately depressed but still prefer the company of my dogs to most people?
What kind of dogs do you have?
Sweet, dumb, wonderful shelter mutts.
What are we using to post videos to Lemmy at this point? It still doesn't seem to work from Voyager.
Have you taught them any tricks?
Testing a direct upload into the the web browser:
Nice. What browser/OS?
Brave, android
As a general rule, I don't like apps. I like to have as much web traffic as possible routed through my browser, which I can then use to block cookies, trackers, etc. Generally speaking, apps are much worse on privacy.
Yeah I'm with you there in most cases but I can't get videos to upload with anything. Five different devices, four different OSes, three different browsers, two different Lemmy instances, and even a VPN to bypass my own firewall and yet I still get nothing but JSON partridge in a fucking pear tree parsing errors when trying to post videos.
Anyway, here are some pictures.
FWIW, I would choose to hang out with your dogs over most other humans, too.
Your dogs are so cute! I love the upside downness. How often do you groom them? They look very clean. I've got a hairy dog and I really should be taking her to the groomers every week, but it's so expensive.
Thanks! The only thing I do for them regularly in terms of grooming is to cut their nails. They get baths if they're dirty or smelly but they've never had a haircut. Short-haired breeds are awesome.
It really depends on the person, you have to have some sort of jumping off point. Whether that is sharing something in common with someone or having cool hobbies.
I think this is the biggest myth of conversation. People always tell you to search for people whom you share something in common with, but the reality is that nearly everyone shares something in common and there’s no reason to go searching for it.
The key to a good conversation with a stranger is to initially do two things: 1. Ask details about the stranger and 2. Intertwine that with yourself in some way. You don’t even need to share this part.
Good conversations have these things I’ll call “footholds” where you intentionally give each other details shortly after meeting in order to create those ties in conversation. If you ask where someone is from, you should shortly offer up where you are from as well. Or if you ask about a hobby, offer a light comparison to your own.
Once you have enough of these footholds, the conversation should flow freely. If it ever doesn’t, ask the stranger more about themselves. And trust me, just be interested in what they say.
I sometimes use the alphabet method. When a conversation gets stuck I think of words starting with a and form a question from that.
Example : angler fish, amazon, aeroplane
-> do you like travelling? What's your dream destination? Do you like the deep sea/ocean/swimming?
I think for short ask questions, actually listen to their answers and follow up or share your own experiences. Now you're conversating.
Me in my head: Start a conversation, think of words that start with a.... Aaaaaaaaaaaaa....
Me out loud: We come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow
Everyone, including me: WTF!?
I'm not perfect at it, but what helps me is that I genuinely love to learn and I like to take the opportunity to learn from people when I meet them. I just need to find an entry point (job, hobby, something the person is knowledgeable about) and then I start asking questions, and applying the limited knowledge I might already have on the subject.
With short interactions with people that are working (supermarket, bank, restaurant, phone assistance) I usually go for empathy, and overall just being nice. When one comes to me I go for a joke to brighten their day a bit.