How to Talk Proper

The supposed steps of conversational intimacy, according to the tech titans of Silicon Valley, go as such; First, you talk about other people, places and things, to establish a rapport with the person you are talking you. “I know this Becky and she has really good hair”, you say, seeing if the person in front of you will take the bait and respond. “I know a Becky with good hair too!”, they exclaim, “She says she uses coconut oil and children’s tears as a leave in conditioner.”
The second circle of conversational intimacy is talking about yourself. “I occasionally have anxious thoughts about the future” you may say to someone you know and feel safe exposing yourself to, being vulnerable or even just personal. “I sometimes think about how it would be easier to just die than deal with all the bullshit in my life” they may counter, which will either freak you out, concern you to the point of intervention, or invite you to go deeper still into your personal life, depending on the kind of person you are and the setting of the conversation.
The third, and supposedly most connected level of conversation, is about ideas. Ideas are neither gossip about ourselves nor others, but they inevitably reveal much more than personal factoids or observations about Becky’s hair. They can be a tool for insight into the brilliant mind of a colleague, or a kind of emotional flashing, the equivalent of running naked through the streets. The former, “I wonder what a cashless society would look like”, or “Where do we go when we die” can open up a conversation and invite the sharing of ideas towards a great goal of solving real or philosophical problems. This is probably what happens in Think Tanks, not that I really understand what those are. The latter, “I think all men are selfish pigs and I think they should be discontinued” says more about the mental and emotional state of the speaker and less about the idea itself.
I have been guilty more of the latter than the former, starting off a conversation of ideas and segueing into a diatribe about what really gets my goat, but it says more about my anger, frustration and general rage than it does foster closeness over the exchange of ideas and principles. It would be better, probably, to step down a level and just talk about myself. “I’m feeling frustrated by the people or situations in my life and feel like equating that to universal principles” might be too direct for some people, but it’s honest and it’s not an attempt to get close to someone by oversharing as much as it is a framework of how much to salt to pinch at the things I subsequently say.
Recently, more of my conversations with close friends and family are a blend of two and three, we apply ideas to ourselves and one another. This is just how conversation works, but I think that the constant circling back may be doing more harm than good. The questioning of everything that happened in my twenties is petering out, but there is still a tendency to scrutinize and over analyze every thought and text, interrogating its moral validity until I’m not sure which way is up any more. I think it might be time to put a little less weight behind my conversations. Throwaway comments can hurt, absolutely, and words have power to destroy governments, but I’m just a person trying to come to terms with the daily business of life and its irrelevancy. Very little I talk about, on the phone or in person, is going to change the mind of the person I am talking to, because very little of what they say is going to change my way of thinking. Maybe I need to lighten up, and aim for the bullseye of that third circle of intimacy, talk about ideas for post-apocalyptic escape routes and if we should build translator apps for dogs. There is so much joy to be had in conversation, and active listening is a whole different topic, but the bones of what we’re talking about, all my millennial ladies, doesn’t always have to be about us.
