The Art of Conversation - Catherine Blyth [11]
In 427 B.C. the orator Gorgias of Leontini conquered Athens with his defense of runaway bride Helen of Troy. It wasn’t her fault, he said, but words’: They “stop fear, remove sorrow, create joy and increase pity,” but they also “poison and bewitch the mind.”
Two-and-a-half millennia on, nothing has changed. There is no greater power, no pleasure so serious.
Can conversation save lives? It certainly saves marriages, and few would dispute it builds self-esteem. Shouldn’t it be obvious it can also raise social esteem, generating the goodwill that funds the best in life and business? Neglecting it graffitis cultural DNA, muddles minds, and helps granulate us into extremists. But using it can rebuild our crumbling common ground. As researching this book has taught me, we are more complicated and magnificent than we realize: Far from behind technology, we’re beyond it.
Close your eyes a moment. Imagine saying hi to the strangers on your street. Imagine everyone saying it. Imagine it is the start of a conversation.
Is that so preposterous? It never used to be.
Let’s wage war on shyness. With a friendlier environment, we have a better chance of making it into the next century. And enjoying it.
As Alexander Pope nearly wrote:
True ease in talking comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
Understand the steps, you will hear the music.
We need to talk.
THE CONCISE MANIFESTO
WHAT CONVERSATION ISN’T
Performance art
Competition
Scripted
WHAT IT IS
Mutual appreciation
Cooperation
Spontaneous
THREE PRINCIPLES
Generosity
Openness
Clarity
FIVE MAXIMS
Think before you speak
Listen more than speak
Find the incentive for talking
Never assume you know what they mean or that they
understand you
Take turns
1
HELLO On Conversation’s Casting Couch
Don’t talk to strangers? Don’t speak until spoken to?
Forget it. Inhibition is useless. How do you start a conversation? Simple: Say hi.
It’s easy to say. But as with flying, the critical phase of conversation is takeoff, and greetings don’t follow straight lines, but vary from place to place. Even chimpanzees have a host of hand clasps. Some grip, some press wrists, some grab and groom, and all respect one rule: The dominant chimp’s hand goes on top.
By contrast, many humans bungle customary overtures. Some dive in, so keen to have an impact, they’re blind to the impression they make. Other, shy souls stumble, mumble, or say nothing. What does it matter?
The chimps get it: Greetings announce who we are. They reveal plenty about a relationship:
“Hello, reptile,” she said. “You’re here, are you?”
“Here I am,” I responded, “with my hair in a braid and ready to the last button. A very merry pip-pip to you, aged relative.”
“The same to you, fathead. I suppose you forgot to bring that necklace?”
(It is abundantly clear Aunt Dahlia adores her reptile nephew, Bertie Wooster, the beloved P.G. Wodehouse character.)
And they can shape relationships. When the Earl of Oxford was presented to Elizabeth I, he bowed, issued a loud burst of flatus, and fled England in shame. After seven years’ self-imposed exile, he returned to court. Her Majesty greeted him: “My lord, I had forgott the fart.”
➺ Rule one: Greetings spark connections
Initial impressions are indelible. Compare the shopkeeper who asks how you are with the one who snorts, her eyes glued on your down-at-heel shoes.
She may not mean to be rude, but she might as well turn her back. Yet in most towns, would this surprise you?
No word costs less or counts more in a conversation than hello. Even in a megalopolis such as London there’s something unsettling about a person who won’t return it, like the man on my street whose liveliest response to “Hi” is a grunt (usually he looks away). I’m not sure what I, or life, have done to him, but the sense of a person stranded in his own bleak world is strong. It crystallizes the importance of greetings for making contact and wiring conversation for sound.