How to avoid awkward silences when conversing with someone, in 4 tricks

This type of situation can "kill" dialogues that would otherwise be interesting.

The human being is an amazing animal for the simple fact of having the power to converse; thanks to speech we can both cooperate and persuade or even defend our perception of the world, or simply meet people and seduce. However, and despite the fact that the range of possibilities that the art of speech offers us is almost unlimited, there are situations in which none of that matters, because we block ourselves when trying to chat with someone.

Awkward silences are situations that many people want to avoid but which, incomprehensibly, appear again and again in many people's daily lives. However, by training in certain social skills, it is possible to master some simple tricks to avoid those awkward silences. tricks to avoid those awkward silences. Let's see how to do it.

Social skills to avoid awkward silences.

You are talking to a person with whom you had barely crossed a few words before, and everything is going perfectly: during the first minute, you realize that you have been able to easily overcome that phase of uncertainty in which you must decide how to start the conversation, and for the moment everything seems to be going smoothly. However, there comes a point at which the subject you are talking about is apparently no longer relevant, and you get that hateful awkward silence. What went wrong?

As we will see, there are different answers to the above question. To explain it, we will see several strategies that help to prevent these small relational problems. Of course, in all of them it is assumed that the conversation has already been initiated. If you are also interested in knowing how to start talking to someone with whom you do not have much confidence, it is better to go to this other article: "How to start a conversation with whoever you want, in 6 steps".

Without further ado, let's see what are the steps to follow to have fluid conversations and in which naturalness prevails.

1. Emphasize positive aspects of the other person

It may seem strange, but flattery has a relationship with awkward silences, or rather, with the absence of awkward silences. Often these "dead spots" in the conversation are due to the fact that either we or our interlocutors have adopted a defensive attitude. a defensive attitudeThis is common when you don't know the person you are talking to very well. Faced with uncertainty, we unconsciously think that the best thing to do is not to expose vulnerabilities through what we say.

Thus, flattery is a simple and easy way to break down many of these defenses.. The consequence of this is that the person receiving these positive appraisals spoken aloud will open up more, explain themselves more extensively, and at the same time make us feel more comfortable.

2. Initiate conversations about something that interests the other person.

This is an easy way to avoid awkward silences. On the one hand, it allows you to skip those phases of formal conversation composed of topics that need not be of interest (the weather, work in general, etc.), and on the other hand, it makes our interlocutors feel comfortable talking about something that excites them and about which they have many ideas. For example, you can talk about hobbies, news in an area of interesting news, etc. Thus, answers are unlikely to be short.

3. Don't speak in fear of pauses.

One of the key aspects of awkward silences is that, for them to come into existence, almost any pause in the conversation must be interpreted as a "glitch" - a symptom that the people involved in the dialogue are not connecting. However, this does not have to be the case; a pause can mean many other things.

For example, it is possible that to emphasize a statement, it may be accompanied by a deliberately placed pause, so that the forcefulness of the response is enhanced and, therefore, that we have a very clear opinion about what is being discussed.

Many times, awkward silence appears when this happens and we are not able to call attention to the expressive power of this fact: we simply say a sentence and keep silent because we cannot conceive of any other possible answer. However, on certain issues where we might expect different opinions from our own, the mere fact that we have created that silence is in itself another topic of conversation, as it it provides an opportunity to explain why we are so sure of what we are saying..

In other cases, the awkward silence may occur because the other person responds briefly and succinctly. In these cases, we can turn the situation around so that the interpretation emerges that this is a sign that it is the interlocutor who is nervous and does not know how to continue talking.

In these situations, it is good to adopt an affable attitude and redirect the conversation by implying that we are taking the responsibility for continuing to speak away from the other person; a sign of good will: "well, if I have understood you correctly, it seems that you do not agree with the proposed reforms...". However, this should be done if there is real reason to believe that the silence is due in part to the other person's nerves, and not simply because he or she does not want to continue talking.

4. Get used to giving your opinion without fear.

Anyone will be eager to end a conversation if all we bring to the dialogue is one question after another. Interrogations are not to anyone's liking, and they are the most conducive context.They are the most conducive context for awkward silences. The solution to this is simple: avoid asking questions all the time.

In practice, if what you say is interesting or expresses an original point of view, the effect of these contributions to the dialogue will be very similar to that of a question that is crying out to be answered. For example, if the other person talks about one of his or her hobbies and you talk about what you know about that activity by adding an opinion, the other person will feel called upon to take a position on that kind of statement.

In short, keep in mind that questions are not the only tool to get the other person to talk, and sometimes they are just the opposite: something that leads our interlocutors to decide to stop talking.