Help with Casual-Conversational Skills

[Arch0wl]

conversations are one skill I've learned to get pretty good at so I'll drop a few things

1. question-commentary. there needs to be some kind of alternation. this is perhaps the most fundamental structure of conversation, and the most socially awkward people (like, beyond just "a little awkward") don't ask questions.

2. keep mental time of how long you are talking about shit. time is relative, 10 seconds past 60 seconds of you talking feels like forever, but the first 10 seconds of what you have to say doesn't feel long at all.

3. if there is an awkward silence it's because one of you doesn't know a good transition. think of one. ask something. comment on something. there is never a reason for an awkward silence in conversation.

4. make eye contact.

5. do not make extended direct eye contact unless you want to communicate that you want to fuck them. look at the spot directly above someone's eyebrow; this is the more effective place to look.

6. it's okay to break eye contact. people do this all the time. you just can't be looking down at the floor the whole time. if you have to look somewhere, look eye-level or up.

7. people who are bored with you will look down at something, usually.

8. they will also respond with less enthusiasm (shorter responses, less variation in tone, etc.)

9. they might also tense up (shoulders move toward neck)

honestly though

most of socialization is just pattern recognition. after you do enough of it, you will recognize certain patterns in communication and you will learn how to vary from those.

A lot of socialization is assumed common knowledge base. e.g. you can flirt with people who are 21+ in ways that you could not with people who are 18, because people who are three years younger have not spent that time acquainting themselves with the "metagame" of flirting. the same "metagame" concept exists for non-flirting socialization as well.

if you want to learn how to read body language well, take an acting course. you will feel like a massive idiot but that's normal, and you will learn a lot about body language that you didn't before. I've taken body language analysis courses, and I don't think they are as effective as actually getting in there and performing, then getting feedback on what you did, then analyzing what other people do and giving that same feedback.

empathy has nothing to do with any of this. I could be a complete psychopath and smooth over people socially. it's all pattern recognition.