One strategy I’ve seen recommended is to ramble a bit, including potential conversation starters on topics which are more interesting to you as part of the ramble.
For example, let’s say you’re talking with someone you just met in the laundry room of your apartment building. You’re talking about the weather, or something similar. You want to see if this person is interested in cooking, so as you load some clothes you casually mention how you made a mess of your shirt last time you cooked to see if they bite.
I have not tried this myself, but it seems very general and subtle enough that it’s not out of the ordinary.
In my experience, most socially inclined people do something like this, possibly unintentionally. So also listen to see if the other person is doing this, and if they are, be ready to pick up on anything interesting they say. Don’t assume that if they mention something in passing that they are only slightly interested.
I’ve noticed that people uphold a lot of social conventions about how conversations are supposed to work, and then they have to all get drunk in order to have interesting conversations, because those social conventions (like “don’t make non-sequiturs” or “don’t talk about impractical speculations”) make interesting conversations difficult.
So… pretend to be drunk? Invite a drunk into the conversation? Probably not very good advice. But it seems people want to get past small talk, but need an excuse for breaking with convention.
That is very true. Many people also seem to interpret the politeness rule of not talking too much about oneself in such a way that no hint about interesting topics ever gets picked up because giving your opinion on something, or relating experiences, is “talking too much about yourself” unless you were explicitly asked. The only solution I’ve is to simply avoid people who are frustrating like that.
At a high level, I have the same advice as any other instrumental rationality topic: know your purpose. Why do you want to move from small talk to more interesting topics? What anticipated future experiences are driving your choice to be talking with this person at all?
Specific options:
Accept social risk. Often, small talk is used among people who don’t trust each other enough to open up. If you can identify that the actual risk is smaller than the perceived risk, then you can introduce the (somewhat) riskier topics that actually interest you. With luck, it’ll interest them too.
If your goal is social cohesion, as opposed to your own entertainment or information-seeking, steer the small-talk toward the other person. Find topics they’re interested in and guide them in telling stories about themselves.
Change conversational partners. If you can’t identify a strategic goal in continuing a conversation, find an excuse to leave it and do something else. Do be somewhat patient, though: it’s easy to underestimate the value of non-close acquaintances and the time it takes to get enough mutual knowledge to be able to have truly interesting conversations.
To myself—when stumped; “what do I want to know about this person?” then ask that; or find a way to ask that.
To others; “What is the most important thing you could be working on right now?” followed by, “What are you doing about that?” and “how can you do that better?” (also “have you tried X”)
Traditionally—people would read paper or books and share that information with people they meet. i.e. “did you read the article about X” but people don’t read papers any more.
Keeping a list (either written or mentally) of recent interesting things to chat about is good.
I tend to also ask, “what occupies most of your time?” Because it usually is something they are most interested in sharing.
Interestingly; those small-talk topics when you look at them carefully, are actually the important ones. “how are you?” when taken to steelman is practically the most important question I can ever ask someone. Its just too bad we automate to the default answers so often. (I have a theory that the weather actually affects 8% or so of people’s moods. which is a small fraction; but big enough to be of significance for everyone. I don’t know how to prove this; but its would explain why everyone defaults to the weather)
Often when people do the interview “how old are you, what do you do” type questions they are looking for common ground with which to share things with you. “Oh I also volunteer”, “I also own a car that broke down today, how funny”. If you try to broadly hit a few areas of your own interest with “hooks” for people to grab on—it will make it easier to connect.
i.e. “I like cooking” is not as good for hooking interest as, “I tried cooking X last week”… (this advice comes as dating profile advice as well)
I have a theory that the weather actually affects 8% or so of people’s moods.
I remember reading somewhere that people who live in places with better weather aren’t measurably happier for it. This doesn’t disprove your theory, since people’s mood could still swing with the weather even if their baseline happiness is invariant.
Pick something from the context that has potential to lead to an interesting conversation, and start talking a little more passionately about it. Alternately, splinter the group into one-on-one conversations.
It seems that being extroverted is mostly about simply building certain extroverted habits. I’ve just noticed that I should probably try and replace my default response to “How are you?”/”What’s up?” with something with hooks for interesting topics, or maybe just saying whatever’s on my mind at the moment.
It occurs to me that certain situations and topics constantly reoccur, and that these present useful opportunities to transition to a more mutually interesting topic. For example, I should probably condition my response to mentioning the weather into “honestly, I think I probably follow weather satellites more closely than the weather itself”. This might easily lead to discussions of space, technology, or even GCR/X-risk hooks like the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor or the Solar Storm of 1859.
At the moment, the best I can come up with for discussing sports is to bring up the idea that anyone sufficiently obsessed with anything, regardless of topic, basically slowly becomes a nerd. Sports nerds start out as just fans, but once they start tracking stats and playing fantasy football, they slowly turn into nerds. They are especially amusing because of the “jocks vs nerds” archetype, which is a completely arbitrary dichotomy. I can imagine this leading to discussions of in-groups, sociology/psychology, or maybe meta-analysis.
Any thoughts about how to move from small talk to more interesting topics?
One strategy I’ve seen recommended is to ramble a bit, including potential conversation starters on topics which are more interesting to you as part of the ramble.
For example, let’s say you’re talking with someone you just met in the laundry room of your apartment building. You’re talking about the weather, or something similar. You want to see if this person is interested in cooking, so as you load some clothes you casually mention how you made a mess of your shirt last time you cooked to see if they bite.
I have not tried this myself, but it seems very general and subtle enough that it’s not out of the ordinary.
In my experience, most socially inclined people do something like this, possibly unintentionally. So also listen to see if the other person is doing this, and if they are, be ready to pick up on anything interesting they say. Don’t assume that if they mention something in passing that they are only slightly interested.
I’ve noticed that people uphold a lot of social conventions about how conversations are supposed to work, and then they have to all get drunk in order to have interesting conversations, because those social conventions (like “don’t make non-sequiturs” or “don’t talk about impractical speculations”) make interesting conversations difficult.
So… pretend to be drunk? Invite a drunk into the conversation? Probably not very good advice. But it seems people want to get past small talk, but need an excuse for breaking with convention.
That is very true. Many people also seem to interpret the politeness rule of not talking too much about oneself in such a way that no hint about interesting topics ever gets picked up because giving your opinion on something, or relating experiences, is “talking too much about yourself” unless you were explicitly asked. The only solution I’ve is to simply avoid people who are frustrating like that.
At a high level, I have the same advice as any other instrumental rationality topic: know your purpose. Why do you want to move from small talk to more interesting topics? What anticipated future experiences are driving your choice to be talking with this person at all?
Specific options:
Accept social risk. Often, small talk is used among people who don’t trust each other enough to open up. If you can identify that the actual risk is smaller than the perceived risk, then you can introduce the (somewhat) riskier topics that actually interest you. With luck, it’ll interest them too.
If your goal is social cohesion, as opposed to your own entertainment or information-seeking, steer the small-talk toward the other person. Find topics they’re interested in and guide them in telling stories about themselves.
Change conversational partners. If you can’t identify a strategic goal in continuing a conversation, find an excuse to leave it and do something else. Do be somewhat patient, though: it’s easy to underestimate the value of non-close acquaintances and the time it takes to get enough mutual knowledge to be able to have truly interesting conversations.
I use two questions.
To myself—when stumped; “what do I want to know about this person?” then ask that; or find a way to ask that.
To others; “What is the most important thing you could be working on right now?” followed by, “What are you doing about that?” and “how can you do that better?” (also “have you tried X”)
Traditionally—people would read paper or books and share that information with people they meet. i.e. “did you read the article about X” but people don’t read papers any more.
Keeping a list (either written or mentally) of recent interesting things to chat about is good.
I tend to also ask, “what occupies most of your time?” Because it usually is something they are most interested in sharing.
Interestingly; those small-talk topics when you look at them carefully, are actually the important ones. “how are you?” when taken to steelman is practically the most important question I can ever ask someone. Its just too bad we automate to the default answers so often. (I have a theory that the weather actually affects 8% or so of people’s moods. which is a small fraction; but big enough to be of significance for everyone. I don’t know how to prove this; but its would explain why everyone defaults to the weather)
Often when people do the interview “how old are you, what do you do” type questions they are looking for common ground with which to share things with you. “Oh I also volunteer”, “I also own a car that broke down today, how funny”. If you try to broadly hit a few areas of your own interest with “hooks” for people to grab on—it will make it easier to connect.
i.e. “I like cooking” is not as good for hooking interest as, “I tried cooking X last week”… (this advice comes as dating profile advice as well)
Did this help?
I remember reading somewhere that people who live in places with better weather aren’t measurably happier for it. This doesn’t disprove your theory, since people’s mood could still swing with the weather even if their baseline happiness is invariant.
Pick something from the context that has potential to lead to an interesting conversation, and start talking a little more passionately about it. Alternately, splinter the group into one-on-one conversations.
It seems that being extroverted is mostly about simply building certain extroverted habits. I’ve just noticed that I should probably try and replace my default response to “How are you?”/”What’s up?” with something with hooks for interesting topics, or maybe just saying whatever’s on my mind at the moment.
It occurs to me that certain situations and topics constantly reoccur, and that these present useful opportunities to transition to a more mutually interesting topic. For example, I should probably condition my response to mentioning the weather into “honestly, I think I probably follow weather satellites more closely than the weather itself”. This might easily lead to discussions of space, technology, or even GCR/X-risk hooks like the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor or the Solar Storm of 1859.
At the moment, the best I can come up with for discussing sports is to bring up the idea that anyone sufficiently obsessed with anything, regardless of topic, basically slowly becomes a nerd. Sports nerds start out as just fans, but once they start tracking stats and playing fantasy football, they slowly turn into nerds. They are especially amusing because of the “jocks vs nerds” archetype, which is a completely arbitrary dichotomy. I can imagine this leading to discussions of in-groups, sociology/psychology, or maybe meta-analysis.
Moving from small talk to more interesting topics is a totally different skill set than general extroversion.