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Barry_Cotter comments on Open Thread, August 16-31, 2012 - Less Wrong
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Practice conversation and you will get better at it. That's it. More helpfully, if there is a random stranger near you, you can open them and talk for a bit about any random smalltalk bull you like. This will improve general conversation skills. If you live in a large anonymous city you don't need to care if people think that's weird because people will not be getting together to share these impressions. Advice I picked up from reading PUAshit; jump between topics without feeling the need to link them or segue at all. Advice that sounds good that I haven't tried out; record yourself in conversation to pick out flaws. Oh, and pause, don't um. Improv will help, and remember, keep calm and carry on.
Also, choose topics where inferential distance for a random person is small. This is what allows talking instead of explaining, and easy jumping between the topics. Avoid controversial topics, such as money, politics, religion.
A good topic is easy to understand, and does not divide people into opposing groups.
What topics aren't controversial and within a short inferential distance from most people? My intuition is that this is close to the definition of "boring".
Listen to actual conversation sometime, most of it is excruciatingly boring if you think about it in terms of information. But as other posters have pointed out, most conversation is about social bonding, not exchanging information.
This all looks like good advice; thanks. I think my main problem is that I have trouble mustering up the guts to actually do these things. I just don't talk to strangers.
Maybe I could get around that by precommitting to social interaction? Like signing up for improv like you say, or with stickk, or by going on some sort of working holiday?
If you're not really good at reading feedback, practice won't help in the least. People will be polite to you, which you won't distinguish from pleased, and quietly hate you.
Really good is helpful, very helpful, but not necessary.If what you're saying is that practicing on randomers you won't meet again is low EV given poor is people reading skills, sureis. But iwhat's higher? And for people with over sensitive rejection detectors or general anxiety practice is good even if all you get out of it is calmer.
Getting in group conversations, then mostly shutting up and watching. Most people will be decent conversationalists to learn from, you'll be able to watch reactions more closely than if you were concentrating on talking at the same time, and they'll gossip about the absent which will tell you what to avoid.