✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

Exhausting dialogue and conversational shortcuts - Austin Kleon

austinkleon.com · 836 words · saved by 1 readers

In a pre-pandemic post, “What to say when you don’t know what to say,” I made a big list of some of my favorite conversational shortcuts that I like to drop to keep conversations from being needlessly confrontational or boring. Stuff like: And so forth. The pandemic just amplifies everything, of course, so now that I barely speak to anyone, I rely on these conversational shortcuts more than ever. One of my favorite jokes of the pandemic is how bad it is to start a conversation with “How are you?” (Daniel Johnston’s iconic mural seems almost unbearably existential these days.) One needs to go looking for new alternatives, so I enjoyed this Kat Vellos post on Instagram: “It’s good to hear your voice” or “I’ve been looking forward to talking to you” seem like good replacement options to me, and I plan on practicing them this week, as I have a rare string of daily phone calls coming up. Looking at Vellos’ chart made me think of one of my favorite artifacts from my youth: the soundboard. So

In a pre-pandemic post, “ What to say when you don’t know what to say ,” I made a big list of some of my favorite conversational shortcuts that I like to drop to keep conversations from being needlessly confrontational or boring. Stuff like: “It wasn’t for me” when somebody asks you what you thought of something you hated that they might’ve potentially liked “You may be right” when somebody criticizes you and “go to hell” wouldn’t be prudent “Thank you for saying so” when somebody gives you a compliment And so forth. The pandemic just amplifies everything, of course, so now that I barely speak

Explore this link on the map →

related reading