Are you a good Conversationalist? Energy transference when talking.

I write this thread because I spend a lot of my time speaking with people about various different things. One could say that everyone spends a lot fo time talking to people about various different things…Ah but how well do you think you are at it?
I’m a teacher, so I hear all form of conversation either with me or as an outsider listening before class starts. In my world ones ability to communicate effectively with others is a true testament to how they view themselves. I try to be a confident speaker, respectful of others. Sometimes I think I fail miserably. Sometimes I feel great after a conversation. Even been speaking to someone and after feel completely drained? You had no time to get a word in and before you knew it the conversation was over, and your energy was effectively diminished? Or the converse. Have you ever been in a conversation and suddenly realized that you were doing most of the talking, be it because you knew the most about the subject matter or the other people in the conversation were so transfixed on what you had to say, you simply didn’t stop talking. How did you feel then? Pretty energized huh?

No this is not Phlosphr trying to bring up some wacked out kitty induced psychosis just for the sake of argument. I really want to know.

How about putting some parameters on this.

Boldness: Do you like to own a conversation? Do you like to think you have the upper hand at all times? Are you uncomfortable sitting back and listening to what others have to say?

Meek: Are you constently the listener? Never really putting your 2¢ in? Are you easily taken over in a conversation, allowing the other or others to talk over you?

Assertive: Are you confident most of the time with what you say? Do you aggressively defend your points to no end?

Confident: Are you more sage-like? Do you think before you speak more than 85% of the time? Do you let other speak and wait your turn? Are you respectful to others when in conversation?

So dopers. How do you rate yourself on your own scale? Are you a good conversationalist? Or do you avoid conversation like the plague?

it’s all so relative to context.

Definitely I feel full of myself when I get to talking about things about which I’m “the expert.”
But then I remember how boring it is to hear other people talk about their crap, and feel a little sheepish.

I’m a good conversationalist, I think I have a good feel for what’s needed, when I should talk and when I should shut up.

I’m a therapist, so I’m an awesome listener, but that’s a learned skill, so I have to artificiate it to some extent.
It’s all relative to the situation and the other participants though. Some people make me look like a conversational wiz, others like a dull clod with no social skills whatsoever.

Given reasonably good group chemistry, I’m good.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been the guy that doesn’t talk much. I’d rather listen. You can learn alot from listening.

I’m all business when I speak. No patience for small talk.

BUT

When I actually feel like saying something meaningful, I’m proud to say that [most of the time] it’s articulate, grammatically correct, and informative.

I have a bad habit of “summarizing” other people’s words for them before their finished with their end of the conversation. Bad!

I must be a confidant. People are always telling me secrets, which I keep. I’m asked for my opinion so rarely, I’m usually taken aback when it happens.

Re “energy transference” – this reminds me of the difference between an introvert and an extrovert. Extroverts gain energy from interacting with people. Introverts expend it, and end up drained. Definitely an introvert here.

I do like making small talk and usually limit conversation to that. Once the conversation really gets going and involves more than two or three people, I usually take a backseat and just listen. I like it better that way.

I absolutely hate being cut off or ignored. A recent incident still makes me mad. I was with a group of women who were talking about a seminar we had just attended. I tried to say something here and there a number of times. Every one of them, even a good friend of mine, glanced at me as I started to speak, and then just cut me off to talk amongst themselves. Damned disrespectful. It’s not like we were having a heated argument (where manners are sometimes ignored), and they were not cutting off one another. I felt like screaming at them, but of course, that would be bad manners!

So I suppose I’m a mixture of meek and confident! I believe in polite conversation, but I feel no need to dominate.

As greck said, context is everything.

For day to day chat, I’m a fairly ‘meek’ listener. When the SO gets home and wants to talk about her day at work, I’m happy to hear about it and not have to respond to every point with some considered opinion.

I really enjoy good ‘after dinner’ conversation, and I can become quite bold and/confident about issues that I am interested in. However, most of the time I’m more interested in all of us having a good time rather than ‘winning’, so I’ll back off and listen, or try to steer the conversation onto other things if I think I, or anyone else, is monopolising the talk.

If I am cut off (which I also hate), I tend to politely wait and make my point again in the next lull. I have been known to get a bit sulky if I am continually denied such an opportunity (“No, fine - it doesn’t matter…”).

I’m lucky to have an SO with whom I have many wonderful conversations - I’m sure that because of her I’ve become more confident and also a better listener.

I am either a stereotypical “guy”, or merely completely conversationally inept. In either case, I see no reason to continue talking if nothing needs to be said. I answer questions asked of me, I ask questions when I need to know the answers, and I provide information when I feel it is relevant. Apart from that, I don’t see a need to be making noise. Maybe I’m just efficient?

According to the criteria you laid out:

I put in my 2 cents when I feel it is relevant, and when I feel that the audience is receptive to listening to what I have to say. I tend to wait for an opening to speak, and not to interrupt, unless I feel that the conversation is digressing from an issue to be resolved, or if misinformation is spoken which has apparent consequences if left to propagate through the rest of the conversation.

I am confident in what I say. If I am not, it does not get said. Barring the odd lapse in judgement (alcohol induced or otherwise), it pays to think before speaking. I am a bit of a “slow” talker - I take word choice and context quite seriously. This makes some people impatient, but generally ensures that I only need to say something once to make my point. I will aggressively defend my points - not to no end, but rather until either the audience is convinced of my point, or until I determine that further discussion is not going to accomplish anything further.

I can’t stand persons who can’t stand silence. Conversation is a tool, not a state of being.

-FK

Very good listener and speaker. Can also walk away from annoying speakers. Can also tell others that what they are saying is bullshit.
So, Phlosphr, why do you really want to know??

Well I really want to know because I believe the SDMB is a very good conuit for conversation. I doubt many would disagree with that assertion. It is a fantastic place for those who are introverted, extroverted, socially inept, or complete social butterflies. You are forced to wait to hear what the other person has to say and it just a hunch, but I bet there are a lot of extroverted people here on the SDMB that to you and I, would seem quite the opposite in real life. Thats why I asked.

I feel a big divide between conversations with “my own kind”–i.e. geeks and gamers-- and “normal people.”

Amongst my own kind, I have no trouble at all making conversation, even if I’m suddenly thrust into a group of strangers. Mutually intersting subjects materialize without effort and lively debates arise. Partly, I suppose, it’s a matter of everyone having common interests, and a common canon and vocabulary to draw upon. Moreover, among geeks, it’s good to show what you know, it’s good to be assertive and to make and defend controversial statements, and it’s good to challenge other people’s statements. Among my set, mostly scientists, people are also usually careful about specifying how confident they are in their statements, so aggression is usually tempered by a willingness to defer to someone who has more or better data about a topic.

So among geeks, I am bold, though, I like to think, not to a fault. I learn a great deal from conversations with smart folks, so I try to listen carefully and understand what my conversational companions are saying.

When talking to “normal” people, though, I am constantly grasping for the next thing to say. I am extremely self-conscious about sounding like a know-it-all. I am extremely self-conscious about hurting people’s feelings or offending them by telling them that I think they’re wrong. Many times, I’ve used geek-type responses around normal-type people, e.g. pointing out an inconsistency in their logic or introducing some facts that they might not be aware of, only to have the person blow their top at me or, worse, slink away, wounded. So among normals, I do not discuss politics, religion, skepticism, etc. If the topic comes up, I fish around noncommittally, unless I know that I’m on the same side of the debate as people, in which case I will voice bland agreement. I never lie about how I feel, though, and there are a few issues on which I cannot be silent (e.g. religious or racial intolerance, separation of church and state, people who are taken advantage of by con artists like “psychics”, people who are forgoing medical treatment in favor of some “alternative” therapy, or people who are taking supplements that might be dangerous, etc.) though I am very much more circumspect that I am with other people.

I try to stick to non-controversial topics, and I try to ask a lot of questions since I know that one of my weaknesses is that I like to prattle on about myself, and often walk away from a conversation realizing that I know almost nothing about the other person. It’s not very easy for me to do with–conversations usually end up feeling forced and artificial, at least to me.

Among “normal” people, then, I don’t talk as much, though I try to hold up my end of the conversation. I am not aggressive at all, usually, and I’m constantly worrying about offending people or rubbing them the wrong way.

Guess which way I am at SDMB? :slight_smile:

I bet I’m going to kill this thread, but I can’t stop myself… I experienced this “energy drain” phenomenon this weekend when my mother visited me.

Normally, I’m a pretty good listener – people in general interest me (everybody’s got a good story), and I have no problem carrying on a conversation with almost anyone when we’re one on one. (I am very shy in groups.)

I started off the day on Saturday in a good mood, had plenty of energy, and was looking forward to spending time with my mom. That changed after I spent the entire day listening to my mother talk. That’s the best way to describe it, because we certainly weren’t having a conversation…she did 99.9% of the talking – telling me all about her coworkers, her job, her neighbors, etc in excruciating detail – while I said “uh-huh” every 30 seconds or so. By the mid-afternoon, I was morose and exhausted. I felt like she had completely sucked the life out of me. She’s not an unpleasant person and she wasn’t nagging me or anything – she just would not stop talking, and that wore me out.

She noticed, too – she had the nerve to tell me I needed to work on my personality, after I had suffered all day! :slight_smile:

I think that may also be true with online dating services. People can seem to chat a lot in email, but when they are in person, suddenly they do not have much to say, or are awkward in expressing themselves verbally. Merely generalizing.

I love conversation. I love talking to people, but usually in small groups. I absolutely love hearing people’s life stories, and what’s important to them. This served me well in my previous life as a documentary journalist. I can listen for hours, and ask prompting questions. Maybe that was because my main subject was blues musicians, who have generally had incredibly interesting lives.

In day to day conversation, I get exasperated by the one-upmanship fast mode of talking. This is probably a direct result of the aforementioned documentary work, mostly with old Southern people. Sitting on the porch talking, things transpire slowly. Plus, there was always the factor of the blues musicians going slow to figger what you were about, and whether they wanted to trust you. I was considered trusted, but saw plenty of faster-talking documentarians being given the short-end of the stick because they just yammered too fast and loud. They’d say what great footage they’d got, and I knew it was a shadow of what could have been. The musicians usually laughed at heartily when the filmmakers headed off. That energy transference was one of, “Ya ain’t gonna get my heart, Joe, cause yer a dork, but I’ll give you enough to get paid.” Amazed me to see how often that worked just fine.

So, in light of that, I can’t stand it when people just yammer on with a fact-oriented “I know THIS” agenda.It feels abrasive, and leaves me feeling sucked dry. What about inquiry, and care for another? Conversation should be a dance, a sharing of time together, enjoying each others company, not a fucking fact-fest. If one’s ego is bound up in tidbits of knowledge, that’s pretty sad, and exhausting.

Calm down, savor, and enjoy each other’s eyes when talking.

I am more drained by people who don’t talk much but still just sit there looking at me.

phlosphr:

Assertive people do not aggressively defend their points to the end. They are more balanced and open to the right of others to disagree.

You need to be a good listener to be a good conversationalist. Anybody can talk, but a conversation is a two-way street.

Most of the time I’m a terrible conversationalist. I don’t do small talk well. I’m introverted, and find it draining to talk to most people.

This frustrates me, because I think I’ve done interesting things in my life, but I can’t talk about them in an interesting way. I do admire people who can make mundane things sound fascinating! I can make fascinating things sound boring.

The one thing I can occasionally do is ask questions/make comments that can help move along a conversation among other people. But I’m generally the one sitting one the side, smiling and nodding and nothing much else. :rolleyes:

Whoa, I knew I was a bad conversationalist, but I didn’t mean to kill your thread, Phlosphr!

I think I’m a pretty good conversationalist. My real life conversational style is very much like my board style - I pay close attention to what’s going on, and contribute when and where I feel I have something to say. In real life, I also feel that I’m not bad at setting other people at ease, and making everyone in the group feel included. I was complimented once on the way I get back to someone who was cut-off and ask them what they intended to say.

Insofar as I fit any of the styles described in the OP, I suppose I fit the confident and sage-like one. Mind you, this is making a virtue of necessity, as I have trouble getting a word in edgewise in many conversations. The problem isn’t a lack of assertiveness, it’s simply a lack of volume–I have a very soft voice, and people often simply don’t hear me. I deal with it by listening carefully, then waiting for a natural break, and quietly dropping a large rock in the conversational pond.

I have, however, been known to force out a loud, booming “You’re done talking now.” when someone cuts me off to continue blathering nonsense. It hurts my throat, but it makes everyone pay attention. :slight_smile:

Phlosphr, my sister in law says that people use energy when they talk so she doesn’t want to talk much. I thought that’s what the topic of energy was about…

I really can’t stand chit chat, it really gets to me & I tune it out quickly.

Yeah, I probably suck socially with hearing people as I don't hear what they say & so I don't know what to say to them. But deaf people have a way of talking that just cuts right to the point & it's really cool.