TALK ABOUT SOMETHING YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT

It is my experience that many people deemed snobs are just fearful about their ability to converse with people.  They are unsure of what to say or afraid that they will say the wrong thing.

In this blog I will teach you how to hold a successful conversation about a topic about which you know absolutely nothing.  The topic about which you know absolutely nothing is the life of the person with whom you are conversing.  The good news is that the person with whom you are conversing is an expert on the topic of their own life.  Even better news – they will probably be more than happy to tell you about themselves!

You need only ask.

So, after introducing yourself to a visitor at a church (see my previous blog “Thalina”), all you need to do is show enough interest in them to ask them questions about themselves.

I have found that there is really only rule when asking questions in conversation:  As much as possible, avoid questions that only require a yes or no answer.

So, you don’t want to ask:  “Is this your first time here?”  (That’s a yes or no answer.)  But rather, “How did you find our church?” or “What led you to check out our church?”  Follow that up with questions like: “What kind of church did you grow up in?”  And maybe follow that up with:  “How similar was that to this church?”

Ask about their personal life:  “What do you do for a living?” followed up by “How did you come to be in that line of work?”
“What part of the country did you grow up in?”
“How did you happen to come to this part of the country?”

Sometimes it is difficult to avoid a yes/no question.  If you have to ask one, join it to a question requiring elaboration.  For example, “Are you here by yourself today or are your husband and children here as well?”  The second question opens the door to questions about the spouse – similar questions to the ones I outlined above.

In all of this, you have said nothing about yourself, and you don’t have to – unless they ask.  But since you are the expert on ‘you’, they won’t ask you anything to which you don’t know the answer.

A few raised locally in Pennsylvania Dutch culture may object that only a nosy busybody asks such detailed personal questions.  While ‘old Dutchies’ may feel this way, all I can tell you is that most of the rest of the world sees such questions as I’ve listed as perfectly acceptable conversation necessary for making friends.