Some reasons for not wanting to talk about yourself:
Your life is boring. Not that you think it’s boring, but actually boring. You spent the weekend alternating between Reddit, pornography, and a marathon of The Big Bang Theory. Would anyone want to hear about that?
Your life is weird. You spent the weekend larping and no one at work would understand. (No offense against larping, which I think sounds awesome, but I know a lot of people who won’t talk about it with people who have never heard of live action role playing.)
You find your life boring. You’ve already lived your life and do not want to bring it up again in a conversation. You want to talk about something new.
Lets say you are faced with one or a number of the above three circumstances, but you want to build a social network for professional reasons. How would you go about talking to people?
The classic advice would be to get people talking about themselves, but not everyone likes to do that (see above). Additionally, if you never tell people about yourself, it can stop you from really connecting with them. Can you be close friends with someone without knowing much about their personal life?
Is it possible to build social connections without talk about yourself? How would you do it?
Books, current events (although personally I would only go with current events that aren’t overly political, which limits that).
If your network is primarily professional, you could read up a lot on trends in your profession and always have some new topics at the ready to ask others’ opinions on. New research in your field or interesting job news (like “hey, did you hear that XXX company has a new CEO? Do you know anything about that guy?”).
If you have one hobby that you are willing to share, you could focus on being an expert in that. Sure, you might become known as the Weird Dog Lady, but if an interest in dogs is the most normal or interesting thing about you and you don’t feel particularly private about it, you could focus on networks where people might welcome and appreciate your dog knowledge. You can have good tips to share on dog training, and never have to talk about your larping life.
Another focus might be knowledge of the local area. Maybe you can be the person who can always suggest a new restaurant, or knows what store will carry a unique, hard-to-find product, or which drug store is open late on weekends. “Have you tried that new Greek place?” is good even with a coworker you don’t have any real personal connection with. There are A LOT of conversation topics in this area and it’s all very non-personal.
These are all more geared toward having pleasant social interactions with people whose primary relationship is professional. I don’t have much on how to have a purely social relationship with another person without revealing much personally, unless you find ONE common interest and stick to that. I think most people, though, even if they really enjoyed having a common interest or activity in something like knitting, or volunteer work, wouldn’t really feel like taking the relationship to the next level unless the friendship started moving beyond the initial shared interest. Not so much that they wouldn’t want to, it just wouldn’t occur to them. If the other person never reveals anything more personal, there isn’t any indication that they are interested in being closer.
Where I’ve worked, it seems like most coworkers are preoccupied with finding out about each other’s sex lives. If you don’t want to discuss what you’re doing with your weewee at work, you might try talking about something like sports or movies, but don’t expect to be wildly popular.
The Big Bang Theory is a popular show, so there must actually be plenty of people who’d be happy to talk about the show with you. I mean, you shouldn’t respond to a question about your weekend by saying “I watched a The Big Bang Theory marathon. First I saw the episode where this happened, then they showed the episode where that happened, then there was another episode…” but “I watched a The Big Bang Theory marathon. Do you like that show?” would be okay. If the person doesn’t like the show then that’s a dead end, but that’s still less awkward than telling a coworker about your porn viewing.
I’ve lost quite a bit of weight this year, and have found that a lot of people seem really interested in talking about dieting/weight loss. I actually find it kind of depressing that this is the case, but it’s turned out to be a pretty useful fall-back conversation topic.
The weather, which lately has been trying to fake the tropics (100% humidity and 28C, what kind of joke is this?)
Family.
The joke in the newspaper.
Where people went to school.
Why they chose the major they chose.
That there are, in fact, women who prefer bullet points to paragraphs (as of last check, I’m still female). And I wasn’t the only one sitting around the table! Yaaaaay! Mind you, you should have seen the looks that lab tech got… help! We’re surrounded by feminine women!
Cars.
Car sizes.
Why would someone pick a car over another. Eventually, everybody’s car choices were deemed Acceptable.
Bikes.
The combination of bikes with rainy weather, and did we mention it’s 28 fucking C in October?
Sports.
That some of us declare for teams nobody cares much about, in part as a way to avoid sports talk.
The safety manager’s new glasses.
Hair length. The possibility of pulling a Sinead O’Connor when one is not an artist but a paid employee.
A VJ who used to be on TV, who was all bald (leukemia?) and had a very pretty skull tattoo.
I don’t think it’s possible to build real close social connections without exposing parts of your self. But most social connections don’t have to be really intimate. To sustain those not-so-close relationships, you could just use a combination of subtle deflection, harmless fabrication, and pre-planned stories about yourself that you don’t mind sharing.
I hate questions about what I did over the weekend. If someone asks me how it was, I don’t mind saying “fine”. But I struggle when they ask for details. For one thing, I’m a solitary person so everything I do sounds kind of loserish. It also hardly ever changes from week to week. I know people are just making conversation, but it puts me on the spot. So what I’ll do is quickly deflect. “Oh…just hung out. How about you?” Most people won’t pry. The ones that do, well, I don’t have a problem lying to them if I’m in a lying mood. Chances are they will never find out I’m lying because chances are I will never let them get into the “circle of trust”.
Another thing I have done over the past few years that has really saved me conversation-wise: I come up with projects to do on the weekend. They may not be “cool” projects, but they give me something to talk about. So I can say I went to yoga class and then I sold some of my artwork. Or I did some yard work around the house and then sat in on a lecture. I may have done some other things, but these activities seem “safe” enough to mention and I plan on talking about them if asked. Yeah, SOME people may notice that I never mention hot dates, wild parties, or hanging out with friends…and they will crinkle their nose at the oddness of it. But most people aren’t hanging on my every word like that. They are just waiting for their turn to talk.
My problem is sharing feeling and opinions. I’m great with ideas. A person who just spends a few minutes with me knows that I have a lot of them. But I have a hard time letting someone know how I feel. Maybe it’s different for men, but as a woman, other women instantly sense this about me and it makes interaction with them a little “off”. I get along better with women than I do men, and it is still like this.
Lawyers love to talk shop. Recent decisions of note are always a good and fairly safe topic of conversation (as long as the other person doesn’t work for the firm that lost ). For younger lawyers, “Did you see [that thing] on Above the Law?” is an almost guaranteed opening gambit. I personally work for a municipality and we government lawyers like to gossip about things like city politics and lawsuits that affect other agencies. Sometimes you find someone in the know and can get some good dirt, or get an explanation of an organizational structure you didn’t understand before.
That said I’m not a great believer in generic networking. If you have something in common with a group of people, talk about your commonality. If you don’t, why are you even there? Find people you have more in common with.
And, actually, most people love to talk about themselves; only a small minority will deflect “so tell me about what you do” type questions or discussion about issues of interest in their profession.
ETA: this advice pertains to meeting strangers at networking events, not office small talk with people you already see regularly.
If someone asks me questions about my life and things that I don’t want to talk about, I usually switch the conversation to talking about other people…people we have in common and can discuss.
What do I talk about? The other person. The same thing I would talk about if I did want to talk about myself. How do I know that anything about me would be interesting if I don’t already know things we have in common?
And, yes, I say talking about things you have in common is still talking about yourself.
And, no, I don’t understand why those topics you mentioned would prevent you from talking about the other person. Just because you think your life is strange or boring doesn’t mean that others’ are.
And, anyways, whether something is boring or weird or not is a function of the story you tell, not what happened. I don’t mean you have to lie, just tell things in an exciting, relatable way. My life is pretty boring, but I still find a lot of things to talk about that are ultimately about me. Heck, I’m doing it right now, sharing how I do something.
There’s no reason you have to mention, for example, that the friend you are talking about is someone you only know online or who goes larping with you. And, again, there’s no reason you can’t just talk about something you like–that’s still about you.
If you want to talk to someone, the best trick is to simply ask THEM to talk about themselves. Easy. Just provide positive affirmation by nodding at the right time, making appropriate noises and asking the occasional question.
Usually works a treat, particularly with women. You can say 10 words in an hour and they leave thinking what a great conversation they just had.
). For younger lawyers, “Did you see [that thing] on Above the Law?” is an almost guaranteed opening gambit. I personally work for a municipality and we government lawyers like to gossip about things like city politics and lawsuits that affect other agencies. Sometimes you find someone in the know and can get some good dirt, or get an explanation of an organizational structure you didn’t understand before.