Matching Tracksuits

Fun in Fours

Answer 200

Thursday 3 March 2005 | general

In conversations, do you tend to listen or talk more?

“There’s a reason the good Lord gave us two ears and only one mouth,” the saying goes. You learn more from listening than from talking, but that’s not the reason I often find myself sitting silent in groups, listening and not participating. Kinga says I should make more of an effort, but the problem is, I’ve found that many times people are talking about something I know nothing about, or (worse) care nothing about. And so I sit and let them do the work of keeping the conversation going.

One-on-one is a different story, though, and Kinga will tell you I can talk up a storm when I’m inspired (read: irritated).

Question 165 Are you well organized? How often do you have to look for your keys?

Group conversation, though, just baffles me. When I first returned to Poland, I thought it was a language issue, that I just wasn’t following everything. I went back to the States the summer of 2002 and one evening, found myself at a bar with a few friends and their friends and other friends of friends–mostly strangers, in other words. My attention drifted from one conversation to another, and I realized that it wasn’t the language in Poland that was messing me up. I’m just not good at “small talk.” I listened intently to what pairs and trios were talking about, and even then I’d have been hard pressed to nail down a sort of thesis statement for the conversation. I simply had no idea what the hell they were talking about.

Small talk is an oxymoron.

I’m not saying that all conversation needs to be about something “deep” (whatever that might mean), but it does need a grounding for me. What that means in practical terms is that I’m very quiet when I’m with a group of people I don’t know. Once I know that someone shares the same interest as I, I begin opening up a bit.

When I do begin talking, I guess I like talking about something meaningful. I once had a very long conversation with a friend of a friend of Kinga’s about forgiveness, what it means, and whether we can truly forgive another person. It was a Highlanders’ party, and Polish Highlanders are like me, squared: very distant and silent (cautious, even) until they get to know you. In that sense, the two of us had a bit of an impetus to our conversation.

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