Learning To Talk

From -1 to Zero

Teacher: Can you think of anything else that talks, other than a person?

Girl: Uh ohh, uh oh, a bird! Yeah!

Teacher: Sometimes a parrot talks

Girl: Ha ha ha ha ha !!!!

Teacher: Yes, some birds are funny when they talk. Can you think of anything else?

Girl: A record, record, record !

- The Avalanches, from the song Frontier Psychiatrist (2000).

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How did you learn to talk? Capital-T Talk, unprompted-to-strangers and in front of the class talk, easy talk, loud-on-the-subway talk? Did you ever learn to talk?

Or was it so long ago that you don’t remember?

I didn’t talk much, for a long time. I was on the quiet side as a kid. I tended to be quiet in front of strangers, and apart from a few known and comfortable contexts, I didn’t shake the quiet through college. With friends, immediate family, or younger folks, I’d talk normally, but when in unfamiliar situations, I’d often speak only when asked a direct question. I would often pause at length – ten seconds or more – before responding.

At some point I started nursing identity around it. I, I wasn’t shy, I reserved words for select moments. A friend called me poised. I liked the air of sophistication. I liked the actual sophistication, of choosing words carefully and well. It seemed like a better way to live, when people were down to play by the rules. My parents weren’t big talkers either. My mom pointed out that I was conserving my prana* for other things.

But there were problems. In my social group men tended to talk more. This was obvious and disagreeable. I wondered to a friend of mine why women tended not to occupy conversational space. She countered: Women shouldn’t talk more. Everyone else should talk less.

Possibly true. Either way, I had a problem. Chatty folks would, in my pensive silence, gaseously expand to fill the space. Lacking the knack for taking over the momentum of an ongoing conversation, I had to wait for openings. Unable to hold the speaker’s role for more than a handful of words at a time, words which tended to be either questions or responses, I’d lose it and be stuck waiting again. Several minutes of this and I’d be exhausted and want to run away. I wanted to meet new people; I didn’t want to stand around listening. There were lots of people I just couldn’t talk to. I was basically dependent on those who would see that I needed time to think, and would pause and wait, and then ask a lot of followup questions so that we could expand on the whole thought. Group conversations were often painful, nonverbal experiences. I was holding myself back at work, where obviously no one was going to ask directly for my opinion at every meeting. My partner said he felt lonely. But when I tried to talk more, I realized I had gotten into a groove that had worn into a steep ditch. The words weren’t coming; the ones that did were mimetic, generic.

I had to learn to talk, as myself. 

First I tried imitation. Other people had come up to me and started talking, unprompted. So I started to do that. I had no talent at it, and it must have been irritating. My speech came out as a garbled, anxious mess. But it helped. It gradually reduced the insane adrenaline surge that came with being in charge of the input that someone else was receiving. I cut the pausing. I started to think out loud, even as parts of me winced and wrung their hands. Thinking out loud felt like drooling. Sloppy and overly personal, something that other people shouldn’t see. Then all sorts of new feelings started to creep up.

To see how far the tone of speech had to shift when being generative (“I am presenting something for you to consider…”), as opposed to when responsive (“What a nice thing you have there, if perhaps somewhat misinformed…”), was enlightening.

To notice the additional material strength required for a statement to arc over a longer expanse in space, was illuminating. I felt more in charge of my environment. The world made more sense. Talking became fun. 

I was being reborn. I went to a mutual friend’s housewarming with a friend of mine who hadn’t seen me in a few months, and spent most of the time chattering. 

“You talk a lot,” he said, confused. His girlfriend, we didn’t know each other as well, had been under the assumption that he and I silently held hands when we hung out together. (I’ve always been big on hand-holding.)

I started doing internal debriefs after conversations where I’d sit and think about additional directions for the topic or dynamic to go, for the next time it popped up. It’s common to ruminate about awkward situations, or ungraceful exits. For a time I ruminated every interaction I had the spare processing power for. Most dynamics can be incrementally optimized.

I’d prep talking points before attending social events. I realized some people had been doing this all along. I prepped my artist’s statement and summaries of recent work, feeling guilty and fake the whole time. I thought ahead about who might attend and how to have an interesting conversation with them. Here’s an example of what that looked like:

Questions for the Professor’s Såløn:

• What did you do today?

  • Direct question that hopefully returns a literal response, as opposed to an indecipherable abstract one.

  • Literal responses like “I spent the afternoon in lab fixing the microscope so that I can take pictures of mouse brain slices” are easier to catch onto for conversational traction.

• How has your work changed over the last year?

  • Introspective question (you can sneak a moment to breathe!) whose response takes the difference between two opaque black boxes. This diff shaves down the complexity.

• What will your field do over the next decade?

  • Probably best suited for those in the sciences, though it could have interesting responses all around. Some people may get intimidated by the question. Encourage them to hypothesize freely. Imagination over scientific rigor, at least at dinner.

• What is the uncertainty in your problem? (What holds you back from moving faster?)

  • For the ambitious.

  • If you want to pretend to be a VC. Try it, it’s fun!

• What are your upcoming goals?

  • A structuring question. A way to help others, if they are down for it.

• Did you know Somerville City Council is in a polycule?**

I only use three of those, but putting these lists together is an informative exercise.

After learning to talk comes the learning of when to interrupt. Most of my formative experiences were in other cultures, and I hadn’t felt like I was part of liberal East Coast culture enough to have the right to modify it. Was interruption disrespect, or was it co-captainship, stoking momentum, taking over as the other person flagged? Also, when transitioning to your newfound generative mouthbox, how far to adjust confidence in tone? I wanted to make up for the past; I adjusted too far. I cut the I think and I believe. So much of available information was moderately researched opinion and confident theorizing anyways, so why not get in on the business of producing facts? “That’s fucked up,” I would point and declare, gleeful to have begun to contribute. I had started talking. I was talking. I was talking a lot. I teetered from impassive restraint to oversharing. I attended after-work cookie bake get-togethers where the other attendees had clearly not come in with prepped talking points, and I talked over the lot of them. So it goes.

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Now when people are quiet, I wonder, is that where you want to be? How much of talking is a choice, and how much is ingrained through culture? There are lots and lots of subtle cultural norms around talking. We talk more when we’re with our friends, at parties in our own houses, at events we’ve taken part in organizing, in the language and scenarios that we’re comfortable in, where we feel social security: the sense that our contribution would be enjoyed.

Most people need to talk in order to learn. Talking unlocks the mind’s secrets. The intelligent beast lies not so deep within, and with a long stick, or by a friend’s inquisitive face, it can be provoked.

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An anecdote, and an alternative:

Two biotech cofounders faced this problem in VC meetings: one of them prefers to pause before thinking, consider a few different options and then choose the right one to say. The other person tends to speak right away. The problem is, the person who pauses often comes up with the better answer after consideration. The pauser found another way.

They decided that they would wait five seconds before responding to any comment. At that point, if the more considered person doesn’t have a response, the other can speak. They will not look at each other during those five seconds.

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* Prana: a Sanskrit word. In Hindu metaphysics, prana is the air element. It is a force that gives life, energy, and awareness to the individual. The individual uses prana throughout the day to accomplish their activities. It can be depleted.

** Completely made up.