Conversation/"Others" Essay

We spend everyday getting into conversations. We may not notice it, but the slightest movements we make, the slightest waver of our voice, can convey how we are feeling. There are even ways to alter the way we act in conversations to not only be a better listener, but make the others feel comfortable.

In class we examined different conversations between people. The first was between Doug and Christina. Christina started off by trying to be a good listener and asking him about his break and asking what he did. Doug did what many people do; he went off giving Christina a list of every little thing he did during the break without recognizing a thing she said.
Then, Andy and Clea had a conversation. They both showed very good body language; nodding, leaning in while the other was talking. They also asked questions as the person was talking. They avoided accusatory questions (e.g. "why would you do that?", etc), and stuck to questions that would allow the person to get more passionate about the topic. They're voices would remain calm and would only elevate when they got more passionate during a topic. One thing Andy demonstrated during the conversationg was mirroring, in which he repeated the key points Clea said, which really proved that he was listening to her and comprehending what she was trying to get across.

We discussed what people orientation is in conversations, meaning what are they trying to get out of it. My orientation is often to come off as a funny, smart person. I also want someone to feel as if they can talk to me and are comfortable around me. Sometimes I even just go to talk to people who I know will make me happy. If I’m feeling under the weather, there are certain people who I know can make me happier.

However, those goals are all pretty selfish. They’re mostly about how I want others to feel about me. This is common for most people, as our objective is always centralized around ourselves. As a class we decided that ones conversation goals should be to learn about the other person and genuinely want to help them.

We were asked what are conversations that we have a lot. Mine are generally arguments, which is understandable. In arguments, I always have the same ones over and over again. This is because when we have arguments, our goal is not to hear the other person. Our goal is to interrogate, or to accuse, or to prove that we are right. We do not go into an argument wanting to sit down and calmly listen to the other’s opinion.

Andy videotaped one of our classes, which we watched the next day. One thing I noticed was when Jack said something that a few of us misheard. We then all started joking because what we thought we heard was much funnier. From then, more and more people began talking all at the same time. When I think of it, I don’t really remember what it is Jack was trying to say, however I do remember what we misheard and the jokes all of us began to make. We were all talking over eachother once we realized we all thought it was funny, we all wanted our jokes to be heard. Although we were all trying to say something, it was still refreshing to hear a joke and have that connection with a few other people that thought the same thing.

We looked at a comic strip that showed us the right and wrong way to handle situations that all have to do with how you respond to someone talking to you. One that I thought worked was sympathizing. This comic strip was about a young girl whose turtle had died. As she spoke, her father responded with things such as “Oh no, what a shock!”, “To lose a friend can hurt.”, etc. Her father was acknowledging her feelings and letting her know it’s okay to be sad.

One comic strip I had doubts about was about askings questions rather than responding with explanations. It showed a scenerio where a kid was asking his mother why Grandma comes over everyday. In the bad version, she responded giving some huge explanation. In the “correct” version, she responded by saying “You wonder about that. Why does Grandma visit us every week?”. That one is a difficult technique to ever use. The child obviously asked because they wanted an answer and they weren’t asking to develop they’re own theory on it.

“True understanding of people and their emotios is not just mental but physical”.
People often touch to express a feeling without having to use words, and people avoid touching to avoid a feeling of innapropriateness or awkwardness.

There are many types of touching. Casual which involves a bump, pound, or handshake. Compassionaite which involved a hug or a kiss on the cheek. Violent, which is a beating. Therapeutic which involves massage, and erotic which is any kind of sexual touching.

We were asked to catagorize the amount of touching we experiance and whether or not we would like to experiance more touching. I said that I am in between being touched and being frequently touched. I don’t get touched by many people, only a select few, so I can go an entier day without being touched if I don’t spend time with those select few.
As for wanting to be touched more, I said no because I never feel like I lack any form of touching so I don’t think its necesarry to increase the amount of touch I experiance.

Andys theory is that our culture keeps people starved from touch. As a result all physical pleasure has to come from a sexual partner and they feel like they’re missing something so they buy things more and more.

I agree with this, but I don’t think it was just to get people to buy more. I think touching has just become more and more taboo over the years. The whole idea of touch has been corrupted by the fear of sexual predators, rapists, and abuse. As children, we had no problem touching eachother, hugging and kissing our parents and friends. At a certain age, we start learning that it’s weird to always be hugging eachother and touching eachother. I myself have noticed that as a kid I was always kissing my parents on the lips. Sometime within the past 6 years, that has changed. I no longer kiss either of them on the lips and if I think about it, the idea of kissing my father on the lips is somewhat disturbing, even though it is my father and I know for a fact neither one of us would have any sort of corrupt intention. I even see that I’m the one that stopped kissing him and stuck to the hugging. The fact that I’ve been living in the city, and have to spend a total of an hour on public transportation everyday, I have to be confronted with the many freaks that live in NewYork. As a young girl, I often have to avoid contact because the second anyone touches me it’s very possible that something gross may happen. Just from experiancing that, I developed a wall against certain physical things that should be purely with a sexual partner.
Society has not only corrupted certain physical experiances by portraying them as taboo, but also by presenting us with uncomfortable situations that we then learn to avoid at all costs.

As we live our daily lives, we don’t realize that a single conversation we have could be completely altered depending on a simple touch or word. We don’t realize that we often enter a situation with a selfish intention to either get something out of a conversation or to avoid any kind of uncomfortable situation.