College Relationships: How to Have a Good Conversation
So you are all dressed up, at a cocktail party, or perhaps you are even dressed down, heading to a house party just outside of town. Things are quieting down, the night is getting late, and the superficial small talk between passing strangers slowly dies.
You meet somebody new, somebody interesting, perhaps even somebody you find exciting. Together you begin to chat, and then you talk about yourself, over and over again.
Suddenly, your chatting partner checks their watch and excuses themselves to somewhere else, across the room.
Perhaps you wonder why this happens. A solution to this problem is available, right here, right now.
This example is why it is important to know how to have a good conversation with people. A good conversation is engaging for the mind and the heart, and after a good talk you can walk away satisfied and even a little more enlightened.
The problem is that a lot of people don’t seem to understand what it takes for a good back and forth exchange.
The ability to listen first is the most important component in having a good conversation. Listening is important for many reasons. First of all, if you do all the talking, your conversation turns into a confessional pretty quickly. And nobody wants to be your priest.
Instead, what you have to do is listen, and ask questions. If you listen to someone else, then they are more likely to listen to you. Also, don’t assume that you know everything.
You might find that the worst possible conversation you might have is with someone who is interested only in philosophy or politics. As I have gone out and met new people, I have met some philosophy students, and some political science students, who have been less willing to understand a new paradigm of life. Sometimes this type of person will run in circles and contradict themself to avoid being wrong, and to maintain feelings of importance of security.
Being open to new ideas, and being open to understanding someone else’s point of view, will provide you with the most satisfying conversations possible.
Ability to listen – a great and quite rare skill. It also involves the ability to hear, that is, the ability to hear the interlocutor, and not their different arguments about what he said, and the ability to listen so that your interlocutor would like to tell you, talk openly and with pleasure. The ability to listen helps to establish a contact and place an interlocutor, understand his point of view and, if necessary, turn it back to the right side.