How To Shift the Conversation Back To Them
Given that one of your aims in the conversation is to have a significant portion of it be about your partner, what do you do if you seem to be spending most of your date talking about you? How do you move a conversation from being all about you to more about them?
Making the shift from conversation about you to them is easy. The difficult part is often realising that you may be the kind of person that dominates a conversation. And if you don’t realise it, you can’t remedy it.
There are 2 ways to deal with this.
You can either ask a few of your close friends to tell you honestly whether you tend to dominate conversations with them. I’ve done this very thing in the past and been horrified to realise that every once in a while I turn into the group bore. Another option is to make a conscious effort to listen to yourself on a few of your next dates.
Easier said than done! Because often you’ll forget what you’re supposed to be doing. So if you want to check your conversation out at your next speed dating event, make sure you take a reminder with you. Either a piece of paper you’re bound to find in your bag or pocket. Or you could set your watch alarm to go off part way through the event. If you get a vibrating watch then no one else needs to know and you get a little thrill. Writing a cryptic reminder on the top of your dating sheet before the event gets going. Try anything that will remind you to think about it when you’re mid-speed dating event.
If you do find yourself dominating conversations you can be sure that this is losing you some of your potential dates. Yes, you may be very interesting to yourself, but talking mostly about you can make for a dull conversation for your partner. This is especially true if they’re not skilled in steering the conversation onto a subject that interests them as well.
So what are the simple techniques for transitioning a conversation? What can you do the next time you become aware that you’re dominating a conversation?
The direct transition
Here, you just admit that you’ve talked a lot. Here are a couple of options:
‘Sorry, I feel like I’ve talked a lot about myself. Tell me, <INSERT YOUR QUESTION ABOUT THEM>’
‘Anyway, enough about me. <INSERT YOUR QUESTION ABOUT THEM>’
Simple! Just practice it until it becomes natural.
The indirect transition
Here you’re being slightly more subtle. As soon as you notice you are blabbing on, take the conversational topic you’re on and turn it around to get their opinion on the same subject/topic. For example:
You: …so I said to my Editor, I really don’t think that the government should have implemented that policy so close to the election. (Suddenly dawning on you that you’re talking too much). You know what, I was sick of the whole thing by the time it came round. What did you do to distract yourself from all that nonsense?
Them: Thankfully I was out of the country for most of it.
You: Really? What were you doing?
So it’s really very simple. The really difficult bit is to:
a) recognise whether you suffer from this affliction, and
b) catch yourself when you’re doing it.
Once you’ve done that it’s very simple to use the above transitions to shift the conversation.
Remember, you may find it easier to notice your tendency to dominate conversations and practice the above techniques in non-dating situations. I suggest you just start by being aware and shifting conversations in normal social environments.
