I feel like I've spent a good part of this weekend meeting new people and talking about myself. Talking about yourself consecutively about the superficial, factual aspects of your life kind of makes you feel like a broken record after a while. I live in South San Francisco, I moved to the Bay area for work, I'm originally from LA, I work in IT, I live with my sister, etc etc.
Through this exercise, I realized I'm kind of boring. I haven't been to many far-flung exotic places, I haven't gotten a PhD in anything, I don't have an extreme hobby that would make people go ooh, nor do I have great/fun/exciting/interesting stories to tell about myself. After all the introduction hoopla, I find myself kind of just settling back and letting others take the driver's seat in terms of steering the conversation. I do discover that whenever I have a conversation with others who I've just met or don't know so well, I ask them a lot of questions. I think it's a way for me to discover facts and commonalities about the other person I can latch onto and keep the conversation going with, and then I find out a lot about them during the process.
So do people end up not really knowing me well? Is that possible, to "know" someone, after one conversation? I suppose I don't mind people not knowing much about me, but I like learning about others. In the delicate dance that we call conversation, I suppose I'm content with being led, as it's the best way to learn the dance quickly and be able to complement my partner's moves as we sashay back and forth.
First, you're not boring.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I do think listening is the best way to talk. :)
I love connecting with you over the blogosphere =)
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