talk as play match like and the pitfall of different interest:
to the objective observer, a successful conversation reveals that the talkers are alike in some ways, one of them reveals something about himself or herself and the other, in essence, responds that they are the same that way. what is success? obviously, where both are happy about the talk. and you can sense the truth of this theory about success from playing match like with like in personality, values and interests by thinking about what the opposite is, a disaster in conversation, namely an argument where it is apparent that both are not the same, that they have sharp differences.
where even two people have the same interest, they may have different levels of interest. one may be only slightly interested. given that you like to speak about what you're interested in, and most people are interested in themselves, an obvious example of what could go wrong is that you say too much about yourself, more than interests the other person. it would require some fascination with the other person to be a captive audience.
talk reveals what seems very real in your own world. you should be aware that these things may not figure so much in another person's world, they may not be important to them, they may not even think about them. as an example, if one remembers such and such happened when together with the other person, but the other person doesn't remember at all, it is awkward to mention it and be met with puzzled indifference.
and where talk starts going wrong, before full blown argument, when the other person is in a bad mood and suspects the worst of you, it is probably wise to say as little as possible. it's like everything you say will be used against you, that is, it will only trigger a chain of bad thoughts in the other person's mind about you. everything you say will be given a negative interpretation. or that they think you're lying.
but rather coldly viewed, to say anything to another person is always a risk, it's inherent in life. we start off knowing very little about the other person. it's actually very easy for it to go wrong in the beginning, until you have some idea of the other person, you really don't know what is safe to say, what you have in common.
subjectively, good talk seems almost to have a kind of glamour injected. mutual personal values are confirmed, essentially, we both think such and such are good things, we both want to have such and such. one validates the other.
CLEARCHARGE
