Hey all. I have recently entered the workforce after finishing my degree. Most of my immediate coworkers are foreigners, so there is a significant language barrier for anything other than basic instructions, and with me also being a massive introvert, socializing has proven difficult to say the least.
There are people of all genders and ages working here and I’ve noticed that nearly all of them can effortlessly converse for what seems like hours. I’m talking 20ish year old guys talking to 50ish year old women for half the workday for example. It’s not like they normally hang out and all they seem to have in common is this slow job, but they can just randomly strike up an hour long conversation at any time. I can’t talk to my friends for an hour straight even when I try. I don’t know much about their personal lives, but I know these are ordinary folks, not exactly party animals or anything exciting – like if I were to sum up my entire life I couldn’t yap for an hour, yet they can just do this seemingly every day.
What the hell do you talk about all the time?
1 comment
>like if I were to sum up my entire life I couldn’t yap for an hour
WOW. An hour wouldn’t get you through the past week of my life. If you’re happy, more power to you, but if you’re wondering what people have to talk about – maybe they are leading interesting lives where they go places and do things and read books and watch movies and are interested in other people’s lives.
One way to keep a conversation going is to ask questions of the other person, open ended is better “What did you do over the weekend?” “what was your favorite part of the book / movie” “Why did you decide to go there on vacation?” “What is your daughter studying at college?”.
So step one – ask open ended questions, step two – do interesting things so when people ask you open-ended questions you have something to say.