Reflecting on all the many things I’m thankful for, near the top of the list is gratitude that all of my close family members are adept at the art of conversation.
This is important to me because, in my experience, most people are not good conversationalists. Is there something about me that attracts such people? I don’t mean they aren’t well educated, or are deficient in their knowledge of culture or world affairs, etc. Those things don’t matter. No, I’m talking about people who cannot shut their big traps for one second.
I suppose my touchiness over this issue dates back to my relationship with my father. He was a good father and I love him very much, indeed increasingly as the years pass since his death in 2011. Nevertheless, he was a terrible talker, especially in his later years. He loved to tell stories, one story after another like a chain smoker, and my job was simply to humor him and listen. He never asked me questions, never showed any interest in what I was thinking or what was going on in my life, and he was much the same with other people (though I think some of his older male cronies were able to outdo him). He was a good raconteur and he loved having an audience. In my case, though, I feel there was more to it than that. He was afraid of my Christian faith, I think, and he never wanted to let our conversation drift below the surface.
Another big talker in my life was my best friend from high school, Arthur. In our youth we had real conversations, but by the time Arthur was in his thirties he had become a total monopolizer. Again, he was an exceptional raconteur, and my role was simply to listen. For a few decades I largely lost touch with Arthur. But in later years I wanted to reconnect, and by then he was completely unreachable, an obsessive motor-mouth.
Finally I decided to sit Arthur down and give him some lessons in the gentle art of conversation. This did not go well. The next time we met he behaved just as usual, compulsively telling his amusing stories. At the end of that visit he looked at me seriously and asked, “How did I do? Was this a better conversation? I tried my best.” What could I do but throw up my hands? He was, I realized, utterly incorrigible, and after this I made up my mind simply to love him and to enjoy his admittedly fascinating tales. No conversationalist, he was a consummate monologist, now entertaining the angels.
I have three strategies for dealing with people who are so self-absorbed as literally to have no awareness of the reality of others. One strategy is just to walk away (you ignore me and I’ll ignore you); another is to become an aggressive talker myself (this doesn’t come naturally to me, but I can do it); the third is just to ask questions (listen, learn, love).
Still, these relationships leave me unsatisfied. I want to take all these chatterboxes and herd them into a lecture hall and give them a good talking to. I want to tell them how much they’re missing by hiding in their own little world and never coming out to play. If they want to play pickle ball with me, I’d tell them, then I get to have the ball half of the time, and we’ll go back and forth. That’s just how the game is played.
If you want meaningful relationships, there is no other way. Skill and sensitivity in dialogue is one of the highest forms of love.
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