How Do You Do?

Its that time of year again, when our church sees an big influx of new people, most coming here for school. I always look forward to new people moving here, but when it actually is upon me, I get a strange anxiety about it. My biggest problem is that I want people to become my best bud right away, but I just don't function that way. Friendships take a long time to develop for me. For one thing, I am really, really bad at new people conversations, like major-awkward-pauses bad. It takes me a long time to completely be myself around people, because my humor is just a bit off from the norm. I have to make sure the person whom I am talking to won't report me to authorities for being an idiot. And when people don't become my friend right away, I start to suffer from really silly insecurities, like the feeling that I am left out, or feeling like someone thinks I'm obnoxious, or a snob. It takes a lot for me to admit that out loud, because I like to pretend that I don't let myself be bogged down by inconsequential and high-schoolish feelings like that. But really, inside I do. And then I have to remind myself that friendships take time to grow and the ones worth having will happen naturally, with a little effort on both parts.

I have read novels where young women are sent off to finishing school where they learned the art of ballroom dance, french, and conversational skills. I think I could have used a conversational skills class when I was young. I have had to wing it through the years and this is what I have come up with. If you suffer from the same pressure of speech that I do, maybe this can help you out.

Brooklet Presents:

How to Converse Without Sounding Completely Like an Awkward Idiot:

When conversing with the opposite sex, I found that a skill I learned in a crisis counseling training course comes in really handy. It's called reflective listening. Basically, you just restate what the person just told you to encourage them to keep talking. For instance, Cody comes home and says, "Uh, I just had a tough day at school." Then I, in all my reflective listening glory, respond, "So you had a tough day at school?" Then Cody, proceeds to divulge his very bad day at school in detail, all the while I just keep repeating what he says. C: "A patient threw up all over me." B: "A patient threw up all over you!" See. How could that not be a killer conversation? Already, I can feel your conversation skills improving.

.

.

.

Girls are even easier (because as easy as that last skill sounded, it gets tough trying to come up with interesting and varying ways to parrot). Most girls like to talk about anything, particularly themselves. Take me for instance. I love talking about myself, hence I have a blog. But if by chance you are having a hard time coming up with something to say, try the following topics; they are always sure fire:

.

*Labor and Delivery, *Boobs , *Nursing, *Boobs after nursing, and *How not thin we think we are

.

Works every time!

.

.

Now kids, well kids are the easiest. I learned a lot after spending some serious time with my nieces and nephews this month. They will laugh at anything that has to do with poop or pee. No joke. In fact, it doesn't have to be a joke for them to laugh at it. I heard, for about 30 minutes straight, the kids repeating "C-L-A-I-R-Chicken poop" and laughing horrifically each time. It didn't get old to them. Kids are such mindless wonders. (though it should be noted, that grown up men also think anything with poop or pee mentioned is also hilarious).

.

.

This should be a good starting point for most of you. Though I should caution you that there is this phenomenon called the seven minute lull. Have you heard of it? Apparently every seven minutes, conversations come to a lull. And awkward pauses can lead to dangers bursts of admissions, such as " I named the long hair on my arm Harriet." Don't panic. I have another sure fire way to safely avoid such hairy situations. Whenever a seven minute lull comes, simply talk about the phenomenon known as the seven minute lull. What could be more simple?

.

.

I hope this helps you become a little more comfortable conversing around new people. I mean, it hasn't really worked for me, but hopefully it will work for you. In fact, the next time you meet a new person, if you think about this post, and think about me, and how I actually did once name the hair on my arm Harriet, well, I think you will be feeling pretty good about yourself and the conversation will go a lot better.