The art of a good conversation!

I have a friend like you describe. She talks about herself, her husband (long dead but he was wonderful apparently - although we know he was a bit of a rogue), her two daughters, one wonderful, one selfish (short version), etc etc. What she doesn't know isn't worth knowing. She phones me asking how we are but does not want to know she just wants to tell me about herself. Etc etc.

We are friendly with another couple. I have found that if I am talking to her and my DH is taking to her DH i.e. having two separate conversations, she is always half listening to their conversation.

I am not a chatterbox and will be talking about the menu (if we are out) or enquiring about her son etc. I don't generally waffle on about myself. It is like she is frightened of missing something.

However, if there are four of us (two couples) I prefer it to be one conversation. It is generally her DH who goes off piste and starts another conversation with my DH whilst we are having a general discussion.

I always make a point of asking after other people's children, grandchildren etc. So much so, that if they are only acquaintances I make a note of their names in case I forget.

A few years ago I worked with a woman for about four years. There were only the two of us in the office. I know every detail of her life. I doubt if she knows how many children I have, let alone what their names are.

Each to their own I suppose.

I love my sister, who lives abroad and who hasn't had the easiest of lives, however, she has two topics of conversation, housework and ill health! I phone her regularly but always have a magazine to hand to keep me occupied whilst she chats away about the difficulty of keeping her home clean and the problems she has with her ailments. All that is required of me is to make the odd sound so she knows I'm still there. She's lonely and unhappy and I think I'm the only person she talks at/to. When I put the phone down after a very long call, I'm always grateful that I'm not in her position.

Aveline!!!???

In similar settings I used to set myself secret target words for the person talking to me. I'd award myself 10 points for each time that they said one of them. DH told me that I was going down very well with the others as I was so interested in what people were saying. Some evenings I'd get to 200 points

Much younger and nervously attending functions with DH, I had to meet lots of unknowns and was expected to make small talk. At first I used to have a plan of subjects, written on my palm.
Admire/ ask about clothing, holidays, family, children’s/grandchildren’s activities the children had been mentioned, gardens hobbies and that good old standby. weather!
I never needed everything on the list. Sometimes all I needed to do was be a good listener.

We were brought up to never interrupt an adult and wait our turn to speak .That usually works well and its how my children and GC were brought up from they started speaking,My pet hate is small childen who yell at their parents when they are talking and then pull at their clothes when they aren't acknowledged right away.
Its not so easy with an adult who either does that ,interrupts and talks over you or who doesn't say much so you end up having a conversation with yourself .
My lovely dad used to tell us we should learn a wee bit about a lot of things so that when the "small talk" ran out we could enquire about aspects of other folks hobbies etc .Consequently my kids call me the oracle because I know a lot of useless information.

So sorry tanith- a couple of years ago, I lost the best friend anyone could ever have. I miss her so much, especially now that I am going through a bad patch. The rest of my friends are lovely but not the listening or advising type.

We have a friend who is larger than life and has a propensity to dominate a conversation, but he is so entertaining that listening to him is a pleasure and not a chore. I don’t think a boring word has ever come out of his mouth. I think as some people get older, though, they lose their empathy. DH is very ill and a very good friend of ours phones often to find out how he is; laments the fact that she can do nothing to help (that’s fine) and then, every time, gives me a very detailed account of how her brother in law is on his last legs, can do nothing for himself and is deteriorating daily (that’s not fine!). I make sympathetic noises while my heart is sinking. Ill judged to say the least, but she is such a lovely person I think she would be horrified to realise what is going on in my head, but she just doesn’t think these days. Good job I love her to bits or I would be tempted not to answer the phone.

Ha ha unfortunately all this rings so true. I worked with a lady whose first name began with E. all the girls in the office nicknamed her “Educational”. You couldn’t say anything without her giving you a lecture on what you should do now. By the way, how are you today……….,,???

Some people don't want to listen they just want to talk usually about themselves.

A very good friend of ours rang to tell us her husband has passed away peacefully. Straight away she asked about our daughter who has been unwell. So concerned and genuine asking questions not just thinking of herself. This to me is a real friend who thought of our daughter and how we are coping. I have a few close friends who are priceless I am lucky to have them.
I have known people who unloaded their troubles to anyone who would listen and walked on. I realise with hindsight everyone has troubles some more trivial than others. Selfish people however who talk only about themselves. I listen and give a little time then make my excuses lending an ear isn’t so bad now I am more patient.

I think people who tell you of their similar experiences are telling you that you are not alone. It’s intended to be sympathetic, and not a bad thing in my view.

I normally say, well that is enough about me, how are you?

I like the comment that as we have 2 ears and only 1 mouth we should endeavour to listen twice as much as we talk!

A good conversation is like a gentle game of tennis, patting the ball from one side of the net to the either but never out of reach or hit too hard.

It is so boring listening to people talking about every moment of their life in every conversation, one friend constantly tells me about her life from birth, I’ve heard it a thousand times. She hasn’t got dementia just obsessed with the past. She is a nice person I think but I don’t phone her now because of it, then she rings me and I hear it all again. I could walk away and come back in an hour and she wouldn’t know I had not been listening. I just can’t hurt her feelings by saying anything though. Every time i get to see her she says I’m so down and proceeds at great length to tell you why. She missed me going into hospital and said I hadn’t told her but she talked over the conversation as she wasn’t listening. I do find a lot of people don’t enquire how I am and if they do, wait for a breath to be taken and tell you of their experience of a similar experience they have had..

I have recognised that sometimes I can be bit like this so I am making a real effort to ask about other people's lives. It is quite interesting how often they don't actually ask back so I realise that I am far from alone!

Some people on here have obviously been hurt or felt sidelined by people who have neglected to show an interest in them when the expectation was that they ought to have been interested. That feeling of inconsequence is very hard for people who are denied a voice.

I’m regarded as a very good listener, but I’m often asked about my life as people find it, as one of my foster sons said recently, like a soap opera! After catching up on my stuff I then invite them to talk and I often have to cajole them because they say their lives are tame compared to mine. I don’t agree, we all have things going on in our lives that are important to us and therefore worth speaking about to people who care for us.

I’ve just made a phone call to a neighbour who asked me how I am as she hasn’t seen me about for months. I asked if she wanted the short or the long version and she replied that she had time to listen, so I gave her a potted account of my recent events and concluded with the query that I’d called her about. On this occasion I didn’t ask about her as I was stressed from recounting my tale, but I know that she will understand.

I think Covid has affected people as when I phone some friends to see how they are I find they seem to talk non stop,lonely I guess,anyway I feel I must be helping them,some we have the usual laughs ( they are the ones that don’t discuss their health)

I have or should say had a friend like this. She used to talk at me for ages telling me all her woes. It took me ages to realise that this is what she did to everyone. She was never interested in others. It's quite sad really

To get back to OP. The best conversationalist I knew was an unmarried lady who died aged 94. She lived on her own but was genuinely interested in everyone. She asked how all the family individually was doing. She remembered what schools and classes they were in and what stages in education there were at. She never gossiped and if there was a lull in the chat she would brightly ask how the garden was doing. We had afternoon tea in the old fashioned way. It was uplifting to visit her and NEVER a chore!

The vast majority of people are Selfish!

They also think they are more important than anyone else: hence the need to constantly talk about themselves and their own families etc.

Unfortunately, I know some of these people and try to avoid them.

Also, a lot of them suffer from verbal diarrhoea.

I read somewhere that CS Lewis said of his friend WH Auden at Oxford that YOU COULD NEVER TELL HIM ANYTHING because it only REMINDED HIM OF SOMETHING HE ALREADY KNEW!
Anobody have friends like that? ! I definitely have!

I have a friend who asks me a question, then when I'm a dozen words in to answering, she waits for a trigger bell from my story, hence goes off into a lengthy story of an experience she's had, thus I'm completely put off. Her responses have usually been told before and I've heard 101 times. Time and time again, this is her pattern! At the end of our coffee time together, she then says "Oh, you didnt say what happened.....etc"!!! She is a nice person whom I like to keep in touch with because of family history but it's the predictability of knowing that she will always interrupt me to give her story, that I get uptight about each time we meet.