I’ve been trying to pin point what makes a good conversation vs. a bad one. I know i’m not the leading person on starting a conversation, I am pretty shy in general. I think that part of my not starting conversations as often is that I would rather have a good conversation with someone rather than just talk to talk…unfortunately, once I get to know someone a little bit more I talk a bit too much, and I say some pretty silly things sometimes.
I think a good conversation with someone you don’t know that well still has some level of depth to it but can also just graze the surface. I’ve noticed an element of a good conversation is some sort of feeling. That feeling could even be a lightheartedness about a subject that leads to laughter. A good conversation is one where you can walk away feeling you have learned a bit about a persons story and perhaps a really good conversation is one where you can resonate with that persons story on some level.
So I am fairly able to know what I consider a good conversation and can walk away from conversations thinking that. However, the shallow conversations I have heard or been a part of, I can’t quite give them specific characteristics to fully explain why they were shallow conversations. Perhaps it is me and I found the person uninteresting or perhaps the person was unable to communicate their story well to me.
I could say what a good conversation on music is to me, given that I really like music. I could tell you the elements of that conversation would be that someone was talking about music that they resonate with on some level, even if it is just that the song makes them happy. I have heard shallow conversations about music, among other things, but for the sake of an example we will go with music. I just can’t pin point what made it a bad conversation.
A conversation about what is on a persons Ipod could be a bad conversation depending on the goal of saying what is on ones ipod. For example, “Omg, I can’t believe this is on your ipod” is probably the start of a bad conversation . If you are discussing musical taste and perhaps introducing someone to new music or music that means something to you then that could be a good conversation.
I do believe that music has the ability to resonate with me on a level where there are certain songs that can help share my story or how I feel at certain times. Music is my escape. So music was probably a bad example for good vs. bad conversation, since i’m probably pretty picky about the subject. This was probably a horribly incoherent post.
Does anyone have any thoughts on what makes a good or bad conversation? What are the elements of each?
