Chitter Chatter, Blah Blah Blah

Long time ago, a friend of mine said he was reading a book called The Art of Conversation.

To quote directly from a review by the Publishers Weekly (found on Amazon.com),

[Catherine] Blyth mixes personal anecdotes into a salmagundi of selected quotes from anthropology, history, literature, philosophy and pop culture to analyze and give advice on the dynamics of good conversation.

I have no idea if this book is well-written as I have never read it. The only reason I mention it is because it explores an aspect of human life that is sometimes regarded as trivial: conversations.

The formal definition of conversation is an "oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas" (from Merriam-Webster). But for the sake of this post, I would like to broaden the definition to include the "exchanges of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas" occurring through media other than our mouths.

The media we use to hold a conversation has evolved alongside the advances of our society.

I can only guess that in the Paleolithic era, humans must have used a lot more hand-gestures and body language to convey information, as languages may not have developed fully. I can almost imagine a conversation between two people being similar to a continuous game of charades. Once stable forms of spoken languages were established, writing systems must have followed suit. (No more uses of humans and their faulty human memories to deliver a message!) And with it, the possibility of holding a proper long-distance conversation emerged.

Of course, as we humans are impatient creatures, better and faster ways of communicating were sought after. Since letters, we invented other media of communication such as Morse codes, telephones, emails, instant messages, and texts. Ultimately, without having to physically face the person, we can hold an instant conversation. I almost want to say that certain technology was implemented for the sake of having easier methods of conversing.

We must also make note that our usage of words during conversations also changed over the centuries.

When classism (or any other ism's promoting hierarchy amongst humans) came to be, words and language played a part in keeping the social distance among people of different statuses. This usage is still prevalent today. In countries that still supports the monarchy - an obvious example being Great Britain - the commoners do not address the Queen as "Elizabeth II", but as "Her Majesty". Even in America, we do not call a professor by his or her first name, but by title and last name. But in contrast to “Your Highness” and “Professor”, certain words and phrases have lost their original purposes and were inevitably replaced. For example, “God’s blood” (or any word with “God” for that matter) used to be a curse word – pretty laughable, isn’t it? It is now replaced by several other words like “damn”, “shit”, and my favorite, “fuck”.

And what about new words that spring out of nowhere? Every year new slang words are made up and they are pocketed in our brain for later use. Often-used ones are even added to the dictionaries. (No I’m not talking about UrbanDictionary.com; I’m talking about creditable dictionaries like Oxford English Dictionary.) These words reflect the changes in our society, as for new things we need words to describe them in our conversations.

In a way, our need to converse has shaped society, and society, in turn, shaped the composition of our conversation!

Despite these changes, there are certain rules to a “good” conversation that should remain unchanged. For each individual, these rules are not the same but very similar. After all, some individuals enjoy listening a lot more than talking. Some enjoy talking one-on-one rather than being in a group setting. Again, I have not read the aforementioned book but I believe it to be Blythe’s opinions on such subject, not facts.

With that established, let me briefly talk about what I think drives a “good conversation”. (In the following section, I am assuming that one is holding a one-on-one conversation. Within a group, it would be very different.)

1. Questions

With questions as simple as “How are you?” to ones as complex as “What is the meaning of life?”, one can open up a discussion that can last hours. We may go on a tangent and start talking about a random topic unrelated to the question, but the point is that the question starts up the conversation. But it can’t just be a Q&A interview, where only one person asks the questions and one person answers. The questions must be asked by both people and both people must answer them. I think it is somewhat rude to let one person be the only one asking questions because it implies that that person is the only one interested in holding a conversation.

2. Being aware of the other person’s reactions.

As having a conversation involves multiple people (unless you are insane and you talk to yourself), it is important to act and react to the others. With modern ways of talking, it is hard to figure out how the other person is reacting as sometimes we cannot see the person’s body language, or hear the tone of voice. But you can still figure out what his or her reactions are through diction or hesitation, and hold a conversation appropriately. No matter how much a person tries to hide his or her original reactions, the person will subconsciously slip. If you are talking about something that is uncomfortable for the person, he or she may not react to it directly. But as the conversation goes on, there will be tell-tale signs. He or she may hesitate before responding, or they might not be as cheerful as before. So in that case, you should move onto a different subject.

3. Manners

I am only going to mention a few key manners that matter to me the most. If you have to leave the conversation, don’t just leave. Tell them that you have to leave. No reason necessary, just letting them know is fine. You should always be polite and respectful, and hold your tongue if you have anything bad to say to the person. I personally think it is unpleasant to say anything negative in general. It is unpleasant to even hear negative things. (But to be frank, I am guilty of saying such things, but I really try not to.)

4. Sincerity

One should be sincere in one’s interest in the other person. By interest, I do not mean romantic feelings. I mean the willingness to hear the other person’s thoughts and opinions. Personally, I can tell when someone is faking his or her interest in the conversation. How can I tell? Well, the signs that I look for are the lack of meaningful responses or the lack of effort from the other person to keep the conversation alive. If you don’t want to talk to me, then don’t. I’d rather do something else than to pointlessly keep talking to someone uninterested.

If I end up talking to you, I hope I will be able to keep to these four rules and follow yours as well. For the quality of the conversation for both parties, it would be nice if you could also respect my rules too.

Let me know what you think about the content of this post! I understand that that the post is not eloquent or strong as a writing piece, but I hope the subject was interesting enough for you to contemplate on.

<3,
Margi