Am I a boring person? How do I get better at talking to people?
With help from Austen, of course.
Dear Emma,
I just went out with a group of friends and as usual, I had a very hard time being social. I like this kind of event but I'm shy by nature and I honestly suck at it.
I don't have fun stories to tell, I don't know what to say to people, I don't have clever comebacks. I feel like my hobbies and passions don't interest anyone. I think I am overly nice and most people find that boring or just plain annoying. It seems like everyone else just connects with others so much better than I do. I enjoy listening to others but it's like I don't have the spark that makes others want to hang out with me. It's like no one finds me exciting enough to want to build a deeper friendship. Basically everyone I know is just an acquaintance.
It's hard because I actually like going out and socializing. I like enjoying a drink with friends, or listening to their stories. But I'm just so bad at it. I sit there smiling trying to be nice without the faintest idea of what to say or do next. I think I am a boring person and it's starting to really take a toll, because I feel like everything would be the same if I wasn't there. I'm not leaving a mark on anyone, ever. I have things to share but I just don't know how.
So how do I get better at talking to people?
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You are abominably hard on yourself in this letter, and it makes me want to give you a big hug. But, sweet friend, perhaps I can do you one better - because I bring good news, glad tidings, balm for your broken heart. In your message, you talk about a ‘spark’: a magic, ineffable quality which makes some people the life and soul of the party, and others comparatively dreary. You talk about socialising like it’s alchemy; something mystical and hard to quantify.
But here’s the good news: there is no magic spark. Connecting with people is a skill that is learned just like maths or playing the trombone. What’s very unfair is that some lucky people learn it at a young age; sometimes so young that by the time you meet them it feels as if they were born charismatic. You know how some kids are raised bilingual and so Spanish is just in their bones? And the rest of us have to stumble through verb conjugation as awkward fifteen-year-olds? Well, some kids were taught the second language of socialising, instead (and some were taught both, ugh). Just because you’re arriving late doesn’t mean you can’t learn too, though, and end up native - in fact, I know you can. But it won’t happen overnight. You’ll have to accept being a little wonky at first, and making a few fumbles while you put your 10,000 hours in. Who cares? It’ll be all the sweeter when you get there - and I’m going to show you how.
Before we get to what you should do, though, let’s talk about what not to do. Literature offers us no finer example of a conversational bore than Pride and Prejudice’s Mr Collins; cousin of the Bennet family and paradigm of how not to behave in public (and also, by the way, nothing like yourself. In fact not once but twice in your letter you describe genuinely enjoying listening to others - that’s probably the greatest conversational skill there is, and one Mr Collins has unfortunately not mastered). Mr Collins is a man whose manners are an infuriating mixture of ‘pride and obsequiousness’; ‘servility and self-importance’. He descends upon the Bennet family with the intention of marrying one of Mr Bennet’s five daughters - Lizzy, Jane, Kitty, Lydia and Mary, to the uninitiated - as a kind of recompense for the fact that the Bennet estate is legally entailed to him (i.e. when Mr Bennet dies, he’ll inherit everything, rather than the girls). As such, it’s doubly important for him to make a good impression: after all, the family are predisposed to dislike him, and he's in the market for a wife. Does he pull it off? No. In fact, from his very first letter to the Bennets, things aren’t looking good. Mr Collins’ style is stilted and overly formal; full of self-reflexive verb constructions that seem to demonstrate his propensity for navel-gazing: ‘I flatter myself’; ‘I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting on you and your family.’ In person he is no less rehearsed: at one point he tells Mr Bennet about the delight he takes in offering ‘those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable to ladies.’ An amused Mr Bennet interrogates him:
“You judge very properly,” said Mr. Bennet; “and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?”
“They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time; and though I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible.”
Here Mr Collins reveals two of his biggest communicative mistakes. The first is a tendency to spout pre-rehearsed lines - but the second, I would argue, is far worse: a tendency not to connect with the individuality of the person in front of him. His little compliments can go out to any lovely lady, because for him, socialising is a kind of tick-box exercise. Compliment? Tick! Mention of important social connection? Tick! Nowhere is his failure to see humans as unique individuals more evident than in his creakingly bad proposal speech to Lizzy, which could really be said to anyone at all:
“My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness; and, thirdly, which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness.”
Mr Collins, uninterested or unable to recognise humans as individuals, just wants to tick the marriage box - and indeed quickly turns his attentions to Lizzy’s friend Charlotte Lucas, when Lizzy vehemently rejects him. This is why he is so boring: because he speechifies, rather than converses; because he doesn’t care who’s listening; he just says the thing he wants to say. I mean, here he is below, talking about the life of a clergyman - not an inherently boring topic, I might add. I’d be quite keen to know what a clergyman’s 9-5 looked like. But because no-one’s asked him to talk about it, it comes out like a lecture, rather than a conversation:
“The rector of a parish has much to do. In the first place, he must make such an agreement for tithes as may be beneficial to himself and not offensive to his patron. He must write his own sermons; and the time that remains will not be too much for his parish duties, and the care and improvement of his dwelling, which he cannot be excused from making as comfortable as possible. And I do not think it of light importance that he should have attentive and conciliatory manners towards everybody, especially towards those to whom he owes his preferment.”
Ah, the irony - Mr Collins talking about having good manners rather than actually having them. Classic Collins, classic Austen.
So, what have we learned? 1. The meat and gristle of connecting with people is to make whoever you’re talking to feel like the conversation could only be happening with them. 2. No topic is inherently interesting or dull, so forget about your ‘I don’t have any fun stories’ excuse. I know a bunch of clever people with clever things to say, but as soon as I feel like I’m an interchangeable audience member - yawn. Likewise, I know a bunch of people who could make taking their dog for a walk the most interesting story in the world. 3. I didn’t actually say this yet, but the other thing Mr Collins lacks is vulnerability. He’s so obsessed with his social status that we can’t get behind the mask - is he scared of not finding someone to marry? What keeps him up at night? Vulnerability is the other major thing that connects us as humans. I think this will be an important one for you to think about, my ‘overly nice’ correspondent, because overly nice people can struggle to let others see their real selves.
So let’s get back to you, and let’s get practical about how all this connection is achieved. The first thing you want to do in any conversation in order to make it feel individualised is avoid generalisations and offer specifics. ‘How was your week?’ ‘Bit tiring, how was yours?’ is not an opener that is going to lead to a midnight DMC. Say anything else, literally anything else - okay, preferably something true. Did you fall over on your way to work? Was it funny? Did you just have an annoying conversation with your aunt? Are you reading an interesting book at the moment? Have you been bingeing a terrible TV show? Almost any detail gives your conversation-partner something to latch onto, and then the ball’s in their court - maybe they like that show too. It also gives them permission to be specific and nuanced in return, when you ask them how their week was. (And if you can be a little bit emotionally open straight off the bat, that’s gold-dust. Maybe the TV show you fess up to watching is kinda embarrassing - that’s perfect! Maybe you let them in on some complex family dynamics, so long as you don’t say anything you’ve been sworn to secrecy on. People will feel safe around you more quickly if you reveal something - somewhat - personal.)
After that, it’s all about the follow-up questions. Sorry if I’m going too basic here, but it sounded from your letter like you were in a very stuck place. So: if they tell you that they’re going on holiday soon, but they’re nervous about the long flight, you go oh, that’s interesting. Have you always been scared of flying? What do you think causes it? Is there anything that helps? and then you try to find common ground. I had a friend who was scared of flying. She did this course and on the course they… or I’m actually not scared of flying, but I do kind of get it, because I’m scared of open water/ elevators/ clowns. And once you’re talking about how Bart’s clown bed in Season 4, Episode 16 of The Simpsons scarred you for your life, well then, you’re up and running.
It’s all this stuff - asking follow-up questions, letting your next story be influenced by what they’ve just told you, making eye-contact, smiling, laughing, fully concentrating on your interlocutor - that makes a person feel like they’re connecting with you, rather than being spoken at. So long as you’re doing all this, I really don’t think you need ‘clever comebacks’ or dazzling stories about the time you almost died motorbiking in Cambodia. I think a good, well-deployed and how did that make you feel? will do twice as much good. And I truly believe that people will find your hobbies and passions interesting, so long as you can let your genuine passion for them shine through.
But.
In defence of Mr Collins and his pre-rehearsed compliments: I don’t believe that conversation has to be entirely unscripted to be successful, especially while you’ve still got your training wheels on. To return to my foreign-language-learning metaphor - you might still need to refer to your phrase book during your first few trips abroad. So next time you’re going out to meet your friends, why not have a think about a few things you’ve done that day that have delighted, annoyed or confused you? Just have them ready so you don’t end up defaulting to generalisation (I’m fine thanks) at the first hurdle.
What’s more, although my friends will be pleased to hear I don’t script my own conversations, I do spend an awful lot of time in my head reflecting on how I feel about stuff and why it’s affected me. On an average day my brain is going hmmm I didn’t like that book. why not? did I find it sexist? what did it remind me of? did it remind me of my childhood? and hmmm that man on the bus looks lonely. are we lonelier as humans than we used to be? what’s causing this? is it technology? is it big cities? I’m sure plenty of over-thinkers will relate to this ceaseless, exhausting stream-of-consciousness - but one good thing about it is that by the time I’m going to meet my friends, I have an enormous amount of New Thought I want to share, and an enormous amount of New Questions I really urgently want to ask their opinion on. I bring this up because you said in your letter ‘I have things to share but I just don't know how.’ Could it be that you are blessed with a less hyperactive brain, which is great for your mental health, but means you don’t spend as much time feverishly reflecting on every experience you’ve ever had and exactly what it has meant to you? Perhaps you know you cried watching Star Wars, or that conversations with your mum always leave you anxious - but you haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about why the film means so much to you; why your mum gets under your skin. If you can learn to understand and articulate your own feelings, then you will become a much more interesting person to talk to.
If this is resonating at all, I wonder if you could try writing a diary for a few months. Use it to record your experiences, thoughts and emotions, with as much depth and self-reflection as you can: get one of those books with prompts in if this all feels a bit overwhelming. The point isn’t that you whip this book out next time you’re with your friends and start reading aloud from it Mr Collins-style. The point is that hopefully, by spending a bit of time thinking in this way, the observations and reflections you so deeply want to share will spill out more fluently when the moment arises.
Finally, dear friend, remember this is all going to take time. You have to practise. You have to talk to your hairdresser. You have to talk to the bus-driver. You have to talk to your co-workers and neighbours and anyone you get the chance to. You have to accept that a lot of the aforementioned people aren’t going to want to chat, and that you’re going to make mistakes chatting to the ones who do. You have to stay hopeful: the fact that you truly enjoy listening to your friends’ stories means you are already so much better at connecting with people than you believe yourself to be.
Finally, you have to be vulnerable, if you possibly can. Share what makes you sad; what makes you scared - this won’t make you a burden, because people like to know the real you. And is there someone (apart from me) you could talk to about this particular struggle? A parent? A sibling? Maybe you can even share a condensed version of it with some of the friends you said you wanted to get closer too. All you need to say is: sometimes I feel like I struggle to share the things I want to share. A good friend will reply, oh, that’s interesting. Why do you think that happens? Or How does that make you feel?
And then, without even realising it - you’ll be having the deep, connected conversation you were longing for.
Thank you so much for reading Fictional Therapy, an advice column that uses insights from classic literature to shed light on people’s modern-day dilemmas. If you enjoyed this essay, please give it a like or a share - it helps me reach more readers, which is what keeps Fictional Therapy going. If you’d like to support further, and get my column delivered to your inbox, hit the subscribe button below. And if you’d like to submit a problem to me, just click here!
Last week I loved reading
’s personal and powerful essay about Ozempic and body confidence, which you can read here. Also this moving and wide-ranging essay about how to cope in an emergency by . As a fellow bookseller, I’m always obsessed with reading ’s Receipt From the Bookshop - the latest instalment was particularly funny. And if you like reading, then you have to subscribe to ’s Substack, Read More Books, for weekly, excellent reading recommendations.
This has given me an urge to re-read Pride and Prejudice, but aside from that very spot on advice on the importance of challenging convention and make people feel at ease when speaking to them.
This is really excellent!