When I called him out on his babbling/rapidly switching from topic to topic, apparently to avoid any silences, he shared with me his theory on silence.
"There's a difference between silence of absence and silence of presence. This is only our third date; we don't have that dynamic yet of silence of presence."
In the vernacular we call it "awkward silence" and "comfortable silence." Awkward silence is when there's an unnatural pause in the conversation, generally because you're scrambling to figure out what to talk about. Comfortable silence is when you don't need to be talking and you can just enjoy the other person's company without noise.
If you've just met someone, there is a large chance that there will be silences in your conversation. Unless you "click" right away, you're really just learning each others' language, interests, knowledge base, etc. For this reason, I've known people to come up with a list of topics to talk about before dates. I get it, if you get nervous or are not usually a good conversationalist, that may be a good idea. However, may I suggest that silence is okay? If you just follow the natural digression of a conversation and hit some silences along the way, that's totally fair.
Why are people so afraid of silence? I read somewhere recently (I can't remember where, so I don't know if it was a scientific source or a perhaps a pop culture one) that when we're in another's presence, as long as we're conversing, we're receiving cues of validation. When there's silence, we don't know what the other person is thinking, and it's easy to feel uncomfortable, anxious, and even rejected.
I use silence all the time, professionally, and personally. What's born out of silence can be very telling. Sometimes you learn more about someone than you would have had you decided to talk about you. Sometimes you hear what's really going on in someone's mind. Sometimes you learn that you really have nothing in common with the person sitting opposite you, because while you can practically talk for hours to most people about most topics, you can't seem to get any conversation started with this person.
Let go of the "what if's" and just try to be present. S/he's probably not thinking what you think s/he is. If you're feeling awkward, s/he probably is too. So, if the silence stretches too long, just say something funny to break the ice. Even a simple, "What are you thinking about/Penny for your thoughts?" usually does the trick.
I think hustling for conversation is worse than awkward silence, whatever your date said. In the end, the words are still spawned from fear, and that rarely ends well.
ReplyDeleteI think it depends how it's done. It's annoying to me when it's forced conversation, because like I said, just be authentic! Sometimes, though, it's okay to work a little for conversation starters when you've just met someone. You don't know the person and you have to feel them out. But, yeah, reaching all over the place is unattractive.
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