Conversational Mayhem
Let's say you are in a conversation with someone. It becomes obvious to you that you are either more comfortable in this given situation, or that you are more socially adept at conversing than they are. It seems as if you have control of the conversation, as weird as that sounds, stay with me. Since you are in 'control' of this conversation, does that make you any more or less responsible for this conversation? It does take two to have a conversation...
Sometimes when I find myself in the seat of 'control' I keep thinking to myself that whenever there is silence, it is my responsibility to direct the conversation in a different direction. However, if I find myself in the submissive/out of control seat, I feel that I don't really have much responsibility since I feel that I can't do anything about it. Now that I wrote it out, it seems to make a little more sense.
BUT, what I'm really getting at is, is this a healthy habit at all? On one hand, it would seem that if you are the one with the upper hand, you should take advantage of it to help everyone else out. One the other hand, I begin to think that everyone, whether they can converse well or not, is equally able, and the one controlling it should have no more responsibility than any of the others.
Bottom line, to help others by doing an equal share of the work, thus making them do their fair share, or to help others by utilizing your own abilities? Or one could possibly say, don't go out of your way help others at all, who knows.
Sometimes when I find myself in the seat of 'control' I keep thinking to myself that whenever there is silence, it is my responsibility to direct the conversation in a different direction. However, if I find myself in the submissive/out of control seat, I feel that I don't really have much responsibility since I feel that I can't do anything about it. Now that I wrote it out, it seems to make a little more sense.
BUT, what I'm really getting at is, is this a healthy habit at all? On one hand, it would seem that if you are the one with the upper hand, you should take advantage of it to help everyone else out. One the other hand, I begin to think that everyone, whether they can converse well or not, is equally able, and the one controlling it should have no more responsibility than any of the others.
Bottom line, to help others by doing an equal share of the work, thus making them do their fair share, or to help others by utilizing your own abilities? Or one could possibly say, don't go out of your way help others at all, who knows.
Posted at
6:07 PM
3 Comments:
Good point, but you have to keep in mind that just because you have the "Upper hand" so to speak, that doesn't mean you actually have control of the convo. For instance, I often find myself allowing other to "control" the convo, but at the same time being opportunistic about it, waiting for the opportunity for the convo to flow into an area more in my field of expertise so as at that time I can take control.
Often times though, one person in the conversation is signifigantly dominant though. This is the type of conversation I'm refering to; where it is pretty obvious.
From your statement it would seem like you are waiting to take control? If you have the upperhand, wouldn't you just sway the conversation to your advantage so that you don't have to 'wait' for them to do it for you? I'm assuming that you have the upperhand and that the other is less able.
Either way, I guess all of this has come to my attention because I realized that a conversation, more often than not is hardly 50% back and forth. More often than not, it seems to be controlled by one individual, especially in groups of three or larger.
W/ regards to last comment:
I totally agree with your assessment. More often than not, conversation is controlled by an individual, especially in such cases with more than 2 people, I think that often the convo structure sometimes goes to more of a team format at that point in which every person assumes a role in the convo and their is a leader to guide it. Good point.
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