How To Avoid Awkward Silences When Talking To Someone, In 4 Tricks
The human being is an incredible animal for the simple fact of having the power to converse; Thanks to speech we can both cooperate and persuade or even defend our perception of the world, or simply meet people and seduce. However, and despite the fact that the range of possibilities that the art of words offers us is almost unlimited, there are situations in which none of that matters, because we get blocked when trying to chat with someone.
Awkward silences are situations that many want to avoid but that, in an incomprehensible way, appear again and again in the daily lives of many people. However, by training in certain social skills, it is possible to master some simple tricks to avoid those awkward silences Let’s see how to do it.
You are talking to a person with whom you had barely exchanged a few words before, and everything is going perfectly: during the first minute, you realize that you have easily overcome that phase of uncertainty in which you must decide how to start the conversation, and At the moment everything seems to be going smoothly. However, there comes a point when the topic you are talking about apparently no longer matters, and that hateful uncomfortable silence appears. What has gone wrong?
As we will see, there are different answers to the previous question. To explain it, we will see several strategies that help prevent these small relational problems. Of course, in all of them it is assumed that the conversation has already been started. If you are also interested in knowing how to start talking to someone with whom you do not have much trust, it is better that you go to this other article: “How to start a conversation with whoever you want, in 6 steps”
Without further ado, let’s see what are the steps to follow to have fluid conversations in which naturalness prevails.
1. Emphasize positive aspects of the other
It may seem strange, but praise has a relationship with awkward silences or, rather, with the absence of awkward silences. And many times these “dead spots” in the conversation are due neither more nor less to the fact that either we or our interlocutors have adopted a defensive attitude, something that on the other hand is common when you don’t know the person you are talking to very well. In the face of uncertainty, we unconsciously think that it is best not to expose vulnerabilities through what we say.
So that, Praise is a simple and easy way to make a good part of those defenses crumble The consequence of this is that the person who receives these positive evaluations spoken out loud will open up more, explain themselves more extensively, and at the same time make us feel more comfortable.
2. Start conversations about something that interests the other
It’s an easy way to avoid awkward silences. On the one hand, allows you to skip those phases of the formal conversation composed of topics that do not have to be of interest (time, work in general, etc.), and on the other, it makes our interlocutors feel comfortable talking about something that excites them and about which they have many ideas. For example, you can talk about hobbies, news in the field of interesting news, etc. Thus, the answers are unlikely to be short.
One of the key aspects of awkward silences is that, for them to exist, almost any pause in the conversation must be interpreted as a “glitch,” a symptom that the people involved in the dialogue are not connecting. However, this does not have to be the case; a pause can mean many other things
For example, it is possible that to give emphasis to a statement, it is accompanied by a pause placed there on purpose, so that the forcefulness of the response is highlighted and, consequently, that we have a very clear opinion regarding what is being said. is talking.
Many times, uncomfortable silence appears when this happens and we are not able to draw attention to the expressive power of this fact: we simply say a phrase and remain silent because we cannot conceive of another possible response. However, on certain topics where we would expect opinions different from ours, the simple fact of having created that silence is in itself another topic of conversation, since gives rise to explaining why we are so sure of what we say
In other cases, the awkward silence could occur because the other person responds briefly and concisely. In these cases, we can turn the situation around so that the interpretation emerges that this is a sign that the interlocutor is nervous and does not know how to continue speaking.
In these situations, it is good to adopt a friendly attitude and redirect the conversation, implying that we are removing the responsibility of continuing to speak from the other person; a sign of good will: “well, if I understand you correctly, it seems that you do not agree with the proposed reforms…”. Of course, this should be done if there really are reasons to think that the silence is partly due to the other’s nerves, and not simply because they do not want to continue talking.
Anyone will want to end a conversation if all we contribute to the dialogue is one question after another. Interrogations are not to anyone’s liking, and they are the most conducive context for uncomfortable silences to appear. The solution to this is simple: avoid asking questions all the time.
In practice, if what you say is interesting or expresses an original point of view, the effect of these contributions to the dialogue will be very similar to that of a question that is crying out to be answered. For example, if the other person talks about one of his or her hobbies and you talk about what you know about that activity, adding an opinion, the other person will feel called to take a position on those types of statements.
In short, we must keep in mind that questions are not the only tool to get the other person to talk and, sometimes, they are just the opposite: something that leads our interlocutors to decide to stop talking.
