The Importance of Conversation

I need to preface this post by saying this isn't aimed at any one person in particular, if it was I would likely have approached you about this in private.  These thoughts are shared here in observation of a general behaviour pattern I have noticed.

As a writer one of the things you have to learn quite quickly is how to write characters that have realistic or believable conversations.  That is, two or more characters engaging with one another in a way you would actually expect people to engage.  In the pursuit of perfecting this skill, writers often have to pay closer attention to real world conversations they have and after the fact they pull them apart and pick at the pieces to see what they're made of and what can be learned from the experience.

Conversation is something that I've always found easy, which might be surprising if you know me as I have social anxiety.  For me that centres around initiation more so than engagement itself.  When other people initiate conversations I go with the flow and I can talk to pretty much anyone, but if I am the one who has to initiate that conversation my mind draws a blank, that I believe is an attempt to avoid conflict which we will get to in a moment.

When it comes to maintaining friendships, I find that very easy to do, so long as I have the motivation to do so.  Most friendships that I have had which fell apart have done so because they were connections that I considered more effort to maintain than they were worth.  That sounds judgemental, and to be quite honest it is, and I am not going to try and defend it.  People in your life either contribute to it, or they take from it, which of these they engage in will vary over time with most people, there will be times when you need them more than they need you, and there will be times when they need you more than you need them, that's fine, it's perfectly normal to have that variance.  When you both need each other all the time however it leads to codependency which can have a very negative impact on both of you.  When neither of you needs the other at all it leads to mutual independence which often ends up with relationships of convenience arising which are usually toxic because they revolve around selfish motivations rather than selfless motivations and usually lack emotional investment - this isn't the case for every relationship but it is what I have observed.

Before we continue there are 4 terms I need to outline, the definitions I give are the meanings I associate with these terms, not necessarily their dictionary definitions.  Do not get hung up too much on my choice of words here, the intention is to convey the meaning not to stick to their literal definitions.

1. The first term is 'Argument' which I define either as a position held that the holder is persistent in pushing, or a conflict of ideas that has no constructive resolution, hopefully in context it will be clear which definition is intended.
2. The second term is 'Debate' which I define either as a procedure for presenting arguments in a structured manner that leads to resolution or that avoids conflict when expressing those arguments.
3. The third term is 'Conversation' which I define as two people talking about one or more topics of conversation that does not devolve into an argument or does not turn into a debate.
4. The fourth and final term is 'Conflict' which I define as two people engaging in an argument that leads to heightened emotional responses, possible aggression, or a sense of discomfort.

With those 4 terms in mind what I have observed is that whenever I meet people who don't have many friends, the first question that springs to mind is "Why?" - I don't ask this question outright, it's something that floats around in my mind as I get to know them.  What have observed is that the answer in most cases turns out to be that they are incapable of having a conversation.  That's not to say that they can't talk to people, on the contrary they can usually talk quite a bit, which is often the problem, they can't listen.

Having a conversation that doesn't devolve into debate or into an argument requires hearing each other out, it requires accepting that you don't have to agree with the other person, and it requires acknowledging that the expression of a different opinion in and of itself is not an attack on you if you don't agree with that opinion.  What I find is that people who are incapable of conversation will immediately move to question anything they don't agree with, argue against those expressions, present their own argument, and push their narrative until the other side either concedes or disengages.

The original purpose of debate was not to find resolution to questions or to find a "winner" it was to consider each point of view in a structured manner.  When a topic of debate was to be considered, people would be set a position that they would have to argue for, that position was irrelevant to their personal beliefs.  If you think of a class of 30 pupils asked to debate the merits of Capitalism, 15 students would be assigned "for" and 15 assigned "against" - there would be many students in either side who did not agree with the side they had been assigned to argue, that wasn't the point.  The point was that they had to consider their position and present an argument that backed up that position.  What the nature of debate has devolved into today is nothing more than an argument with each side trying to win and with people only taking the side they personally agree with.

There is a time and a place for debate, and there is a time and a place for argument.  I would define those times as those where the topic to be considered is a belief of consequence, in other words a time when the outcome actually influences your life.  If the outcome has no actual bearing on your life and does not impact you in any way then it's not really something that you should be concerned about constantly.

If you are having conversations with people that constantly turn into arguments then there is likely a problem either with you or with the other person or with both of you where there is this incapacity to hear another person expressing their point of view without feeling attacked by it.  I have known people that fit this description quite well, in that every conversation with them resulted in an argument where every expression of any belief they did not agree with turned into an argument where ultimately what they wanted was for everyone to agree with them.

The problem with wanting people to agree with you is that people are not static entities, they are dynamic.  Whilst their nature exists at the core like a skeleton and rarely changes unless something drastic happens, the body that hangs on that skeleton changes over time.  That body grows and shrinks, it changes shape, it grows old, it becomes battered and worn.  What shapes us as people beyond our nature is our environment, the things we are exposed to and how we react to them.  Two people going through the same experience won't necessarily come through it the same way, some people burn in the sun and others tan for instance, the experience is the same but the impact is different, it's much more personal.

When your pursuit of friendship is defined by the desire only to find those who agree with you, that pursuit is transient.  You may succeed in finding someone that matches with you in the moment but as they inevitably grow and change in response to the world around them just as you do too, then divergence is inevitable.  If your friendships fall apart because of disagreement then it is an inevitability that the number of friends you have will dwindle over time until your specific set of experiences and beliefs are unique such that they don't match up with anyone else, at all, and you can end up completely alone as a result.

The word 'tolerance' is thrown about quite a bit today but it too seems to have lost its meaning.  It has many meanings but the one most associated with the word in this context was "The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others." according to it's dictionary definition that meaning however has been twisted and turned into a weapon that is used against others not when they are actually intolerant but when they just don't agree with them.

Tolerance as a concept is not meant to be employed as an absolute, it is not meant to be used to enforce endurance of every different belief no matter how extreme, it is meant to used more in line with its statistical definition which is where it denotes the measure of deviation from what is considered normal, e.g. room temperature is 20°C with a tolerance +/- 2°C it is not meant be used to say you should tolerate living in a freezer or a furnace with the argument that those conditions are defined by someone else as adequate.

Adam: "It's cold in here"
Brian: "It's not cold in here it's 20 degrees"
Adam: "I feel cold"
Brian: "Well you're wrong"

This isn't a conversation, Adam may have intended it to be, but Brian turned it into an argument.  Someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong in Brian's mind and even if he's technically right he's still resorting to arguing.

Adam: "It's cold in here"
Becky: "Do you think so?  I thought it was quite warm"
Adam: "I feel cold, I should have brought a jacket"

This is an actual conversation, both people don't agree, but there isn't an argument over who is right and who is wrong.  Both sides express their view, it's inconsequential, there's no lasting threat to either person and there's nothing to be gained from having an argument about it.

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to explain this concept to people when they are confrontational however.  When someone has a confrontational mindset they hold steadfast to their beliefs and anything they interpret as an attack on those beliefs they outright reject and shut down.  As a result there's no way to have an actual conversation about this concept with them that doesn't turn into an argument, and as a consequence most people don't even make the effort to try, they just engage with that person less and less until they don't engage at all.

The sad part about this whole thing is that most people never make any real attempt to alter their behaviour, if they are even aware of it to begin with.  Those that do are usually those that either came to the realisation themselves or they have been through therapy to address their behaviour - in both cases unfortunately negative consequences of their behaviour often precede this desire to alter their behaviour, in other words the damage is already done and become self evident.

So where do I fit in to all of this?  Well as a general rule of thumb I don't really care what people say or do as long as it doesn't impact me or anyone I care about.  When it does, then I take issue.  As I said before, when it comes to maintaining friendships, I find that very easy to do, so long as I have the motivation to do so.  That requires tolerating a wide range of beliefs that I don't agree with.  I used to have this idea that no topic of conversation should ever be off limits, that a true friendship could only be defined as two people that could talk about anything at all.  I still think that to an extent but I have come to a slightly different conclusion, that each person will have certain topics that aren't worth mentioning.  With some people that's politics, with others its religion, and with a few it centres more intimately on life experiences they just aren't comfortable talking about.  To put it another way, my tolerance for how many topics of conversation can be off-limits has grown quite significantly.

There isn't really a constructive way to wrap up this post other than to say that if you've found yourself in the position where every conversation you have with someone ends up in conflict then you might want to take a step back with all I said above in mind and consider this perspective, and remember you don't have to agree with everyone and everyone doesn't have to agree with you.  If it's a belief beyond consequence that has no real impact on your life, why do you care, or why do they?