While I haven't actually tried this with other people, I think an appropriate response to show your interest in hearing about it would be along the lines of "Wow. Do you want to talk about it?" in a tone that doesn't sound like you're pressuring them either way.
From the perspective of someone who has been through "traumatizing" experiences, clear indicators of interest/non-interest are important because the responses of potential people to talk to vary widely. For close friends I generally know how they'll respond (and therefore who to ask if I need to talk things out with someone), but other than that it's hard to tell.
To give some concrete examples: Some of my biological family members have been and still are often extremely difficult towards me, especially in person, in ways that are not relevant to the examples. This makes visiting those family members, which I am still obligated to do on every family visit I make, very unpleasant for me. When the subject of my feelings about those visits comes up in small talk situations (or really any not-close-friend-who-knows-what-to-expect situations), I try to minimize the sudden unhappy awkwardness while still being honest and giving the other person an idea of what topics to avoid should they not want to hear about it, then leave it up to them to indicate if they want to hear more or not. (I could explain my reasoning for this approach if anyone's interested, but it's also not relevant to the examples.)
In the past few months I had two conversations with other people, whom I shall call A and B, that illustrate the range of responses I get. I met both A and B in the same social group and had both conversations in similar contexts. At the time of each conversation, I considered my relationship with my interlocutor to be somewhere between "acquaintance" and "friend"; I saw them (in the "Hi"; "Hi" sense) about once a weekday, had conversed with them occasionally, and would have been willing to talk futher about my experience with my biological family with them had they shown interest. They had also given no prior indication of their receptiveness (or lack thereof) to such conversations. Here are the conversations (both were in person):
['handshake' exchange]
A: What did you do during [a recent time when I was away from that social group but A was not]?
Me: I visited my family.
A: How was that visit?
Me: Not great, unfortunately; some of my family members are not the most pleasant for me to deal with.
A: Oh? How so?
[a few minutes of conversation about those family members' behaviors towards me]
['handshake' exchange]
B: So what will you be doing over the holidays?
Me: I'll be visiting my family.
B: Are you looking forward to it?
Me: Some of my family members are not the most pleasant for me to deal with, so no, not really.
B: Whoa! Too Much Information!
[awkward pause, then subject change]
These are the most extreme responses I've seen, and I don't recommend either of them, but they should give you an idea of what people get when looking for someone to talk to. Here's what I do recommend (just from my own experiences and understanding of socializing):
Regardless of your level of interest in hearing more, acknowledge the other person's experience in some way. After (or during) that, you can indicate your level of interest.
If you're interested in hearing more and willing to listen at that moment, inquire if your interlocutor wants to talk further about it - thus my earlier recommendation of "Wow. Do you want to talk about it?". This is implicitly offering to listen to them; something along the lines of "If you want to talk about it, I'd listen" also works. Possible responses:
I would accept A's response as an expression of interest, but I wouldn't recommend it because it assumes that the other person wants to give more details. I'd accept it because it's not probing or heavily pressuring, and it leaves the choice of what details to give in response up to the other person.
If you're not interested in hearing more, possibly offer a platitude, then politely offer some way to get the conversation off the subject (subject change, etc.). If the experience seems to have seriously affected the person, you may want to direct them to other support resources.
I wouldn't accept B's response because it's both awkward and insensitive:
Better responses would include "Oh, ok. [subject change]" and "I'm sorry to hear that. [subject change]".
If you can't have a long conversation at that moment but would want to hear more later, would rather offer support in some other way, etc., then say so. This works much like the 'interested in hearing more' case.
A social advice resource that readers may find useful: (warning: some questions sent there are Not Safe For Work) Captain Awkward
(edited for formatting)
Interesting and useful, thank you.
I think I disagree with you on "Wow. Do you want to talk about it?" as a good response in cases like byrnema's (and other cases I've personally run into). If you ask me that, and I take you up on it, the implication is that you're doing me a favor by talking to me about this; you gain status and I lose status. I, for one, would prefer hearing some response that implies that you're actually interested in talking to me about this, rather than that you're talking to me because I want to talk about it.
Also, I strongly dislike Captain Awkward. I do not second the recommendation. (Others may not share my distaste, so ymmv.)
This is an attempt to explicitly model what's going on in some small talk conversations. My hope is that at least one of these things will happen:
Handshakes
I had some recent conversational failures online, that went roughly like this:
At first I got upset at the implicit rudeness of my conversation partner walking away and ignoring the question. But then I decided to get curious instead and posted a sample exchange (names omitted) on Facebook with a request for feedback. Unsurprisingly I learned more this way.
Some kind friends helped me troubleshoot the exchange, and in the process of figuring out how online conversation differs from in-person conversation, I realized what these things do in live conversation. They act as a kind of implicit communication protocol by which two parties negotiate how much interaction they’re willing to have.
Consider this live conversation:
No mystery here. Two people acknowledged one another’s physical presence, and then the interaction ended. This is bare-bones maintenance of your status as persons who can relate to one another socially. There is no intimacy, but at least there is acknowledgement of someone else’s existence. A day with “Hi” alone is less lonely than a day without it.
This exchange establishes the parties as mutually sympathetic – the kind of people who would ask about each other’s emotional state – but still doesn’t get to real intimacy. It is basically just a drawn-out version of the example with just “Hi”. The exact character of the third and fourth line don’t matter much, as there is no real content. For this reason, it isn’t particularly rude to leave the question totally unanswered if you’re already rounding a corner – but if you’re in each other’s company for a longer period of time, you’re supposed to give at least a pro forma answer.
This kind of thing drives crazy the kind of people who actually want to know how someone is, because people often assume that the question is meant insincerely. I’m one of the people driven crazy. But this kind of mutual “bidding up” is important because sometimes people don’t want to have a conversation, and if you just launch into your complaint or story or whatever it is you may end up inadvertently cornering someone who doesn’t feel like listening to it.
You could ask them explicitly, but people sometimes feel uncomfortable turning down that kind of request. So the way to open a substantive topic of conversation is to leave a hint and let the other person decide whether to pick it up. So here are some examples of leaving a hint:
This is a way to indicate interest in more than just a “Fine, how are you?” response. What happened here is that one party asked about the weekend, hoping to elicit specific information to generate a conversation. The other politely technically answered the question without any real information, declining the opportunity to talk about their life.
Here, the person who first asked about the weekend didn’t get an engaged response, but got enough of a pro forma response to provide cover for an otherwise out of context complaint and bid for sympathy. The other person offered perfunctory sympathy, and ended the conversation.
Here’s a way for the recipient of a “How are you?” to make a bid for more conversation:
So the person with the flooded basement provided a socially-appropriate snippet of information – enough to be a recognizable bid for sympathy, but little enough not to force the other person to choose between listening to a long complaint or rudely cutting off the conversation.
Here’s what it looks like if the other person accepts the bid:
By asking a specific follow-up question the other person indicated that they wanted to hear more about the problem – which gave the person with the flooded basement permission not just to answer the question directly, but to volunteer additional information / complaints.
You can do the same thing with happy events, of course:
So what went wrong online? Here’s the conversation again so you don’t have to scroll back up:
Online, there are no external circumstances that demand a “Hi,” such as passing someone (especially someone you know) in the hallway or getting into an elevator.
If you import in-person conversational norms, the “Hi” is redundant – but instead online it can function as a query as to whether the other person is actually “present” and available for conversation. (You don’t want to start launching into a conversation just because someone’s status reads “available” only to find out they’re in the middle of something else and don’t have time to read what you wrote.)
Let’s say you’ve mutually said “Hi.” If you were conversing in person, the next thing to do would be to query for a basic status update, asking something like, “How are you?”. But “Hi” already did the work of “How are you?”. Somehow the norm of “How are you?” being a mostly insincere query doesn’t get erased, even though “Hi” does its work – so some people think you’re being bizarrely redundant. Others might actually tell you how they are.
To be safe, it’s best to open with a short question apropos to what you want to talk about – or, since it’s costless online and serves the same function as “Hi”, just start with “How are you?” as your opener.
What’s New?
I recently had occasion to explain to someone how to respond when someone asks “what’s new?”, and in the process, ended up explaining some stuff I hadn’t realized until the moment I tried to explain it. So I figured this might be a high-value thing to explain to others here on the blog.
Of course, sometimes “what’s new?” is just part of a passing handshake with no content – I covered that in the first section. But if you’re already in a context where you know you’re going to be having a conversation, you’re supposed to answer the question, otherwise you get conversations like this:
So I’m talking about cases where you actually have to answer the question.
The problem is that some people, when asked “What’s New?”, will try to think about when they last met the person asking, and all the events in their life since then, sorted from most to least momentous. This is understandably an overwhelming task.
The trick to responding correctly is to think of your conversational partner’s likely motives for asking. They are very unlikely to want a complete list. Nor do they necessarily want to know the thing in your life that happened that’s objectively most notable. Think about it – when’s the last time you wanted to know those things?
Instead, what’s most likely the case is that they want to have a conversation about a topic you are comfortable with, are interested in, and have something to say about. “What’s New?” is an offer they are making, to let you pick the life event you most feel like discussing at that time. So for example, if the dog is sick but you’d rather talk about a new book you’re reading, you get to talk about the book and you can completely fail to mention the dog. You’re not lying, you’re answering the question as intended.
Cross-posted on my personal blog.