Conversational Styles That Put Me Off

This piece appeared in the newspapers in October, 2025.

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It is precisely because I place such a high value on conversation at its best that I respond so strongly when it goes out of tune. Just as a person with perfect pitch suffers at hearing music clash and jar, I too am attuned to a certain vibratory quality in conversation — and when we don’t make beautiful conversational music together, I start looking for the “Off” switch.

In the kind of conversation I find ideal, people build on each other’s thoughts and feelings, creating a space that feels alive and fulfilling. It’s an exploration that takes us onto paths neither of us anticipated—creative, like jazz musicians improvising together.

In my life, an important thing to me has been having good friends. When I choose who I want to be friends with, a major criterion – along with kindness – has been this: choosing people with whom I can have conversations that I like. Something interesting gets said that’s worth exploring. Something playful gets said that makes us laugh. Something encouraging gets said that fortifies the heart.

As in life generally, happiness comes from being satisfied with the good, even if it falls short of the perfect. But then there’s what’s not good enough. Here are some of the forms ‘not good enough’ takes for me.

First, the Monologuers — conversation as a one-man show. They seize the stage, conscripting the rest of us as their captive audience. There’s no dance, only a lecture (and usually a dull one at that). I can’t stand it.

Then there’s the It’s All About Me people. They at least have the virtue that you are allowed to interview them, but the subject will remain theirs alone. No matter what is said, they turn it into a springboard into yet another tale about themselves.

And they show no concern at all for whether what they say might be of any interest or value to anyone else—and typically a lot of it seems to be of the “here’s a picture of Martha standing in front of our motel room there” variety. Also typically, it is hard to find an off-ramp into any other kind of conversation.

(The All About Me people overlap considerably with the Vacuous, who are into conversation but say almost nothing that matters.)

The role of interviewer, when I’d rather be talking about something else, is not satisfying. Not as bad as the Monologuer. But not how I want to spend my time with friends.

Then comes the Boaster, so intent on winning your admiration that the gravitational pull of their ego needs pulls the whole conversation off course.

I’m up for a relationship of mutual admiration (if it’s for good reason). But one-way admiration doesn’t meet my own need for respect. (So go boast and name-drop with someone else.)

One of the blessings in my life is that I am with a woman I never get tired of conversing with. We somehow can just share life in a gratifying way, which involves a whole lot of conversation. Our first date, which established our future, involved a five-hour hike through Rock Creek Park in DC (to have dinner together near Dupont Circle). Throughout the long walk in that rich Rock Creek Park landscape, with a Mill and the National Zoo and paths through the woods, we never stopped conversing with each other. And we haven’t stopped sharing our thoughts and feelings in the more than forty years since.

And then there are a few people with whom I sometimes have conversations that are treasures to have had. Something that unfolded in some beautiful way. Something of value that stays with one afterward.

When making new friends, the challenge is to assess: What kind of relationship is possible to achieve? How much is enough to settle for? Can the exchange of our minds, hearts, and souls through conversation enhance the experience of our lives?

I acknowledge that people could quite legitimately have different priorities from mine. What matters to one person doesn’t necessarily matter likewise for another. But this is one big thing I see when I look at what the Quest for Friendship – one of the human world’s most important categories – means to me.

I’ve always been on the lookout for possible new friendship, and I find that it is valuable to make good decisions. Although I expect that I pass over some really “good” people with my choice to avoid those “undesirable” varieties of conversationalists, I believe that conversational style tells us something important about how a person regards relationship.

• Does someone who insists on doing all the talking care about the other person?
• Does the person who insists on being the only topic of conversation have any interest in other people’s interests and needs?
• Is the braggart inclined to give other people respect?

Some people don’t seem to hear the harmonies of good relationship — and their conversational style gives them away.

Because I regard those things — caring, interest, respect — as important in a friend, I’ll stick with these ‘Need Not Apply’ criteria.