Ask HN: How to make smalltalk? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How to make smalltalk?

#21

Post by russell » Wed, May 20, 2009, 6:43 PM UTC

noodle wrote: post #2

i think that this is a good rule of thumb, although its not exactly the universal solution: ask open-ended questions, and latch onto any information that comes back to you in order to ask more open-ended questions. its not exactly small-talk, but people tend to like to talk about themselves and will generally respond reasonably to doing so.

See if there is something about the person to see if there is a nongeneric opening. If she is holding a book, ask about the book. If it's a romance novel, talk about the difference between girl books and guy books. If she is carrying a newspaper of magazine ask whats interesting today.

If these are a little difficult practice on people who dont count. By that I mean people who you dont care if you never see again. The elderly are often a bit lonely and love to chat. Or a girl you would never ask out. (You could be wrong about that.)

Re: Ask HN: How to make smalltalk?

#22

Post by alain94040 » Wed, May 20, 2009, 6:47 PM UTC

Actually, I had just came up with an idea for an iPhone application (check out http://fairsoftware.net/public/project/634)

I'd be interested in finding a developer and an English major to turn this into something real. I think this app has potential.

Re: Ask HN: How to make smalltalk?

#23

Post by psyklic » Wed, May 20, 2009, 6:51 PM UTC

In my opinion, the goal of "smalltalk" is to find what you both have in common with each other. ("Are you a student? --Me too! Major? --Really ... I was going to go into that, but ") Assuming you do in fact have things in common, the rest should follow.

Re: Ask HN: How to make smalltalk?

#24

Post by gabrielroth » Wed, May 20, 2009, 6:59 PM UTC

(1) Good small talk is usually personal, in the sense that it's about the people talking. "I'm a morning person" is not inherently more interesting than "What a nice day!", but it creates a stronger bond between the people talking.

(2) Think of the conversation as an exchange of information: you're telling each other things about yourselves. If you just ask questions and don't volunteer anything about yourself, you seem creepy; if you only talk about yourself, you seem like an egotist. If in doubt, try to get her talking about herself more than you're talking about yourself, but not by too much.

(3) Don't try to show off your knowledge. It's good to be insightful or witty, and it's fine to introduce a relevant fact if it moves the conversation along. But in a casual conversation, people are not looking to be impressed by your knowledge of e.g. their major or yours.

(4) If the conversation stalls out, ask a very general question: something like "Are you having a good day?" or "Looking forward to the weekend?" or "How are your classes going?" This makes it easy for them to find a subject they're comfortable discussing. If someone replies to a question like this in a closed-off way, like "Yup" or "Fine," they're signalling that they don't want to continue the conversation. You can smile and say "Cool" and let it drop without any embarrassment. Not everyone likes talking to strangers, and everyone is sometimes in the mood to be alone with their thoughts.

Re: Ask HN: How to make smalltalk?

#25

Post by dhouston » Wed, May 20, 2009, 7:11 PM UTC

as a starting point, "how to win friends and influence people" by dale carnegie (less weird than it sounds)

Re: Ask HN: How to make smalltalk?

#26

Post by wallflower » Wed, May 20, 2009, 7:36 PM UTC

I've learned a lot from www charismaarts com

I highly recommend it. It may change your social life forever.

It's more about conversation than pickup. Peruse the forums. It's not about technique, it's more about intent. It's not about seeking approval, it's about giving approval.

I'm not going to rehash what their philosophy and conversational techniques are but if you were to search my previous comments on mingling and small talk - much of it is sourced from them.

Re: Ask HN: How to make smalltalk?

#27

Post by spydez » Wed, May 20, 2009, 7:54 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #4

I was about to capitalize the S because I thought this was going to be about how to write a Smalltalk implementation. As for your actual question, sometimes the conversation dies because the other person wants it to, and you'd seem pushy if you tried to force it to continue. But in borderline cases I recommend asking the other person about their feelings about relevant things. I was a peer conselor in college. They t…

As an introvert, I really, really (really) hate being on the receiving end of this endless follow-on questions type of 'conversation' (can it be a conversation if your only participation is to crowbar more words out of me? (I digress...)).

"The only thing a true introvert dislikes more than talking about himself is repeating himself," as an article in The Atlantic once said. So be careful about using this Rogerian Therapy on shy people, and please don't use it on me.

Re: Ask HN: How to make smalltalk?

#28

Post by alexgartrell » Wed, May 20, 2009, 7:56 PM UTC

All you need to do is look for the other persons interest to perk up at specific topics and ask questions in that direction. Keep them talking about things that interest them, tell them how cool what they like is, etc. Make sure to have your own insights and be able to BS about any topic, but the most important thing is to keep THEM talking. People are more interested in what they have to say than what you do.

/sad truth

Re: Ask HN: How to make smalltalk?

#29

Post by larrywright » Wed, May 20, 2009, 7:57 PM UTC

The thing you have to remember is that most people love to talk about themselves. This isn't a bad thing, it's just human nature. You can leverage this, however, for small talk. Ask the other person about themselves, and they will often talk for hours. You can keep it going by just asking follow up questions: "Oh, you went to College X? What made you choose that over Y?"

The trick with this is to not come off like you're writing a novel. The line between interested and creepy is pretty fine. The best advice I can give you here would be to avoid getting /too/ personal. Keep it general.

Re: Ask HN: How to make smalltalk?

#30

Post by chris_l » Wed, May 20, 2009, 7:58 PM UTC

The awkwardness of your 10s silence is entirely in your head. They might have the same problem, but you wouldn't notice if they didn't. Familiarity is about being able to be in someones presence without it becoming awkward.

A lot of attractive girls are boring because the guys always make the conversation, if you let her take the lead you will bore her by default. Try mentioning something she might be interested in and see if she latches on: then you can take the lead and make yourself interesting.