Last Sunday, I headed to one of my restaurant haunts for a late lunch. Although I have a number of favorite restaurants, I usually head to NoLo’s for their weekend brunch, especially for the avocado toast and salad, a favorite of mine. Although I very often go with friends to favorite restaurants, my Sunday brunch is inevitably solo. As a consequence, I always sit at the large bar and order my meal. The place, as usual, was mobbed with late 20’s and 30s, along with a few “olders.” I inevitably take my male purse, stuffed with a couple articles or a small book, just in case. I took the only chair with two young black women on my right and two young black men my left, all obviously college grads. The neighborhood is young professionals and Sunday is a packed noisy crowd. The kind of happy noise that lets me know I’m still a member of the human race, even as a member of the so-called “elderly.”
I pulled a couple study articles out, looking at them briefly, turned to my left and started talking, a conversation that lasted more than two hours—and was great fun. But what made it especially insightful, creating the rationale for this post, is the three of us had several conversations, then together analyzed the relationships.
I began by commenting that the avocado toast that the fellow to my immediate left had just been served was one of my favorites. I usually have two eggs, sunny side, but he had scrambled eggs on top, providing another opportunity for small talk. And then, we were off. We talked about favorite restaurants, where we all lived and whether we ate here regularly. I asked about their work, learning they were sales people, both college grads and obviously successful professionals. After introducing myself as “Dan,” the fellow to my left introduced himself, providing me with his name—“Isaac”—to which I responded that Isaac didn’t fit any African Americans I knew. I was correct: he was Ethiopian. I couldn’t remember who colonized Ethiopia, to which he responded “no one.” And then I remembered, “Haile Selassie and all that stuff,” I commented. Yes, but he wanted to know how I knew that and I responded with my “don’t know shrug.” Both he and his friend talked so rapidly and so humorously that with my hearing deficit, I had to ask them to repeat, explain, rephrase, etc. They were quite OK with that.
Shortly, we had a ten-minute conversation on Detroit, my home in the 1940s. Detroit is inevitably a conversation for a lot of people. .
They went back and forth about their sales work and asked a lot of questions about mine—with several spin-offs on mentoring—my business. They wanted to know how many Blacks out of the 500 execs in my network had I worked with. “Maybe 10,” a response which involved a terrific amount of further interaction. That led to my note that mentoring might not be the best term, “perhaps sponsoring will be more reflective in getting what you want and deserve.” As you might imagine, that insight went a long way. Isaac’s friend and boss/mentor, in his early 30s, described his own complete inadequacy for making sense of the work world today. I admitted to a certain amount of cluelessness, but noted that today’s work world is a lot more diverse than when I was growing up.
Feedback
After about 40 minutes, we got into the feedback phase, which is where everything got really interesting. They wanted more info from me than I wanted from them—which is saying an awful lot. Because I’m a very culturally curious guy. I wanted to know why it was so easy to talk with them and they wanted to know and explain why I was so easy to talk to.
I first commented that I hope I didn’t give off that white/black tick which so many whites begin with when facing a black. “No,” they said. “You smiled, leaned into my face like I was learning into yours, which was unusual. You had your hand on the back of my chair and then you put it on my shoulder, laughing and smiling as you talked. That’s unique and I really liked you.” “Well,” I commented, “I’ve learned to set aside the white/black tick—and move to friendly humanness. That is clearly a learned behavior and still goes with personal awareness when I’m dealing with diversity.”
“Yeah,” said Isaac, “but you didn’t even notice my braided hair.” That was true. I’m numb to hair styles, besides, as I commented in response, “you didn’t notice my bald pate”—which brought laughter.
But the key piece of feedback, confirmed by both of them, was that I set aside the papers I was reading, putting them to the edge of the counter, signaling, they said, that I was happy to converse. I missed that behavior. Like many of the other behaviors it was completely unconscious. I won’t forget that piece of very useful behavior. Still, even though my behaviors are initially unconscious, I normally pick up on them instantaneously, knowing exactly what I’ve done. So, the paper signal was new for me--a learning experience.
I normally run on three and sometimes four tracks in any conversation. There are the verbal and physical behaviors, watching (checking) the response to the behaviors, making immediate adjustments to the responses (adding, subtracting and otherwise), attempting to read the subtexts in the conversations, and monitoring the progress of the interactions to get what they and I both need and/or expect from the conversations. And then, as in this post, I normally think through all that happened, to check my conclusions, and focus on changes for the future that might have surfaced.
After finishing our meals, Isaac insisted on buying tequila-on-the-rocks for the three of us. Both of them gave me a hug when we got up to leave. We could have talked a lot more and a lot longer.
Epilogue
There are a number of issues that make for a highly successful interpersonal conversation.
Small talk occupies a significant role in all conversations, usually more important in introductory conversations. Desmond Morris calls small talk a “friendly mutual aid system,” similar to the grooming and licking rituals of nonhuman primates that provide feelings of comfort, warmth and acceptance. Hayakawa, the general semanticist, calls small talk the “language of social cohesion.” When you know what to look for, small talk can be revealing. For example, small talk sometimes reveals levels of interpersonal sophistication, fundamental attitudes, like hope, distrust, cynicism, openness and authenticity, sensitivity to data, orientations to decisioning (intuitive, linear, big picture vs micro, etc.).
The nonverbal is also of high importance, even more so in first interactions. Note the above responses to the white/black tick, braided hair, and my signaling by moving the papers to the side, gauging space, facial animation and posture—all of which are not necessarily inherent. Matching space with the other is paramount for success. Isaac leaned into my face and I leaned into his. If instead, if I’d have leaned back—in classic Northern European style--that would have seriously limited the conversation.
Effective interpersonal conversation requires a sizable, well-rounded knowledge base. Part of this knowledge is content knowledge (knowing what or knowing that), and some of this knowledge can be obtained from education, lecture, books and etc. One of the terrific values of a great liberal arts education is that you have a general base of knowledge about group behavior, cultural norms, history and the arts. But a well-rounded knowledge base also includes emotional knowledge. The ability to assess the emotions of oneself and others as means for determining both the motives and attitudes for an interpersonal conversation. This kind of knowledge is not merely helpful, but necessary for building responsive, close relations. Interacting in such fascinating and successful ways with another person, like Isaac from Ethiopia, will require significant background development in the intercultural.
Once you’ve stocked your biographical warehouse and learned different ways to talk about yourself, your vocation and personally likes, you can begin to focus on various avenues that can become productive for future interaction. So, focus on those things that can provide productive avenues (increase in depth) and also focus on other things that are related (increase in breadth). You’ll find that having a growing knowledge base makes you not only more comfortable in developing new relations, but also provide you with richer experiences. If say, as happened yesterday, your acquaintance tells me he’s divorced, but has a young son, and shows me his pictures, you can say “Yeah, this is not an unusual situation today. I have a friend in a similar situation who was telling me how he manages the changed relationship with his former wife and his son.” And then, “I’m curious how you do that?” He seemed glad to talk and I doubt he would have shared as much information earlier if he wasn’t willing to talk about his marital status.
There are two very important misconceptions about interpersonal communication—even in initial conversations. First is that of simple meaning. Words certainly provide us with some information, but words come from all sort of sources. And thinking that words mean the same thing to everyone or in every situation will often result in misunderstandings. Sometimes we can get a better understanding of what words mean to a person if we listen for more than words. They may just be letting off steam, or hinting at what they mean because they’re uncomfortable being fully open about a subject. It’s also important to listen to how words are presented. “Come see us” in Western Kentucky may mean nothing more than “goodbye” or “glad you stopped.” Words can also be code language for some other meaning—or an emotional way of talking. The way something is said or the frequency with which something is said may change word meaning. If something is really important, I may clarify or if I think the other person is comfortable with clarifying, I’ll ask directly about meaning.
The second erroneous assumption is that of communicator independence. Sometimes we talk about relationships as though we had no relationship to them—or behave the same in different contexts. When I’m alone in conversations with a small group, I tend to be more voluble than when I was in a social setting with my wife. My wife was not nearly as talkative as I, nor willing to engage as quickly. I loved her for that, so I always made verbal space for her in social settings. People who met me in a setting with her often commented that I was a different person when I was alone in a group. In addition, because of the very public nature of my vocations I developed several different personas, what the business writer, Warren Bennis, referred to as “masks.” Occasionally someone would ask “who is the real Dan Erwin?” a question loaded with assumptions, some of which are plainly erroneous. Over the years, I brushed off the assumptions by responding “he’s a complex person,” or “you just saw one of the real Dan Erwins.” If they were really intrigued, I’d sometimes explain the process of persona flexibility and its inherent value.
Another way interdependence shows itself is through “matching.” The studies reveal that people tend to match each other’s “length of utterance, interruptions and silences; the use of certain types of words, the extent to which one reveals information about himself. . . and certain nonverbal signals such as nodding, smiling, posture and voice loudness. . . . affectionate responses follow affectionate responses, and so forth.”
I inevitably initiate conversations. It was a survival strategy in my first vocation—that of parish minister. It’s been so much of my repertoire for so long that it is largely unconscious. Still, I continue to be amazed by how few initiate conversations. I’m quite certain, however, that the reason many are lonely in life is because they have never learned the basics of conversational initiation. With learning, you can tell pretty quickly whether a conversation with a stranger—or even friends and associates is available. My experience is that at least 80% of my initiations are indicative of people wanting to talk, perhaps develop a new friend or add some social relations. One of the basics of a rich longevity is tied to the ability to initiate conversations.
Some of the above material is adapted from Knapp and Vangelisti, Interpersonal Communication and Human Relationships.