| | Over the weekend, the three people that I went to Gamagori with told me that I talked so much that it was preventing them from being in the conversation as much as they would like. Surprised at this disclosure, I polled long-time friends about this because this is something I would like to fix if true.
However, directly asking "Do I talk too much?" is not is best way to get the accurate answer from a friendly audience, so I changed the question to "Who talks more during our conversations? You? Me? Or we talk about the same?" Sounds like a clever way to find out what I want to know.
I asked no less than 10 friends - and all of them said that we talk about the same. But by questioning them in more detail, I realized that everyone thinks that I am skilled at preventing a conversation from going stale. In other words, I can keep a conversation going if the situation needed it. It is a good thing to them, but winning formulas don't work in every situation.
Some people (especially my Taiwanese friends) feel like any silence is awkward silence. And in that case, I am a very comfortable chat partner to have because they know I can keep a conversation going. On the other hand, for people who enjoy having some silence sprinkled in a conversation, I am probably quite annoying because I prevent silence time from occurring.
It just so happens that my good friends and I chat at the same speed and have many things to say to each other, so there is never really a chance for dead silence. From now on, I have to remind myself that different people prefer different chat paces. This is especially true when my chat partner does not speak my native languages at the native level. So even if they had alot to say, they need more time to process the thoughts before speaking.
My takeaway is that I need to put more effort into understanding the individual pace of my chat partners and adjust myself accordingly in order to create the best chat atmosphere. ^_^
|
| | Posted 11/25/2009 11:27 PM - 9 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
- recommend
  - recs0
- share
- email
 - sent0
|
