I’ve begun to wonder if I’ve ever really learned to have dialogues with other people. I thought I did, but sometimes it feels closer to a description of “parallel play,” like I take a turn to talk and then I take a turn to listen to the other person. I wait until someone brings up a topic that I’m interested in, and then I jump in, ready to share my very intense thoughts. I tend to talk loudly and quickly and with passion. And when I’m done, I’m done. That’s all I had to say, friends.
This post cracked me up -- not laughing at you, laughing with you. I've worked very hard to develop a "conversation mode" but am not sure how successful I've been at it. Ironically, for several years when I was teaching English to speakers of other languages at a state university English Language program, one of my regular classes was "Advanced Conversation". Because American norms are often hard for newcomers and visitors from other cultures to understand and adapt to, this was a popular class. I now think it is very amusing that it was like an alien from another planet teaching humans from other countries how to carry on conversations with Americans.
This post cracked me up -- not laughing at you, laughing with you. I've worked very hard to develop a "conversation mode" but am not sure how successful I've been at it. Ironically, for several years when I was teaching English to speakers of other languages at a state university English Language program, one of my regular classes was "Advanced Conversation". Because American norms are often hard for newcomers and visitors from other cultures to understand and adapt to, this was a popular class. I now think it is very amusing that it was like an alien from another planet teaching humans from other countries how to carry on conversations with Americans.