Chapter 6

Special Gifts, Devices and Techniques

The good conversationalist must develop an approach to conversation, which involves a paradox. He wants to talk to please himself, and will talk for long only if he is enjoying himself, yet his whole approach must be that of trying to please others, not himself. Dryden the dramatist once said, "Who lives to please must please to live." Equally, the conversationalist must realize that anyone who loves to talk must talk to please others more than himself, or he won't be loved for his talking. A Saturday Evening Post verse, "The Terrible Talkers," by Phyllis McGinley (June 10, 1944) satirizes this urge everyone has to talk for his own relief. She says, "The back of my hand to So-and-So . . . Who will confide his troubles . . . When I'm longing to tell him mine."

Fundamentally, talking seems to be the urge to share our troubles with others, and the price we have to pay for this privilege is sharing their troubles. There seems to be no more certain law than that every pleasure has its price, and that every urge, if it is to be satisfied enjoyably at all, must be controlled. If government does not regulate air channels, and if broadcasters do not observe them, the air will be jammed — and nobody will enjoy any program. If in driving along the highways you do not control your urge according to the corresponding urges of the others, blueprinted in traffic laws, you will soon not be driving at all. So, basically, in talking, we want to talk to give expression to our hopes and desires, our problems and fears, sometimes directly, usually carefully camouflaged. But everyone we talk to wants to talk for the very same reasons. And as soon as the channels are not well regulated and controlled, one person will discharge himself, the other will be bored. You might say that then the talker wins. But it is a frustrating victory. For tomorrow when with increased desire he wants to do it again, his friend will be talking to someone else.

Any one-sided conversation is literally a frustration. The listener feels deprived of the chance to unburden himself; the talker will be deprived of the chance tomorrow; consequently both are unsatisfied. Everyone will, I think, recall this sense of frustration after some conversation. If you had it, it means that in the course of it you have not had a chance to talk about the things, which were really on your mind, and have had to listen one-sidedly to what was on the other's mind, but not on yours. This sense of frustration defeats the purpose of talking, which must be to make all participants feel lighter in spirit, refreshed, relieved, renewed.

The conversational dilemma remains: everyone wants to talk about what is on his mind, yet to be a good conversationalist he must let his hearer, or must seem to let him, relieve himself of what is on his. If you were a saint, I should find it easy to tell you what to do. Simply keep fighting back your own urge to find someone to listen to what's on your mind and try to make yourself a willing receptacle of what is on that of others. I tell you quite sincerely that this would make you immensely popular. I also believe that God in His kindness would quickly give you the grace of such a deep sympathy with others' problems that what is on your friend's mind would quite really come to be on your mind too for the moment, so much so that, far from being frustrated by his unburdening, you would be fulfilled and sublimated. You would walk away from the conversation with the lightness of heart and the exhilaration that you feel when you have parted with a still-good suit at the St. Vincent de Paul's poor center.

They say that many of the best marriages grow out of a girl's determinedly listening to what is on the fellow's mind, as if it were on hers — listening, as it were, to all his problems in the hope of someday becoming one of them! Actually this is exactly what happens when we submerge what is on our mind and sacrificingly, unselfishly, listen and comment on what is on another's. In this way, we become almost necessary to the other, we become a most valued friend to him. The urge to have a willing sharer of one's problems is so great in mankind that you can attract almost anyone with Polonius' "hoops of steel," if you sympathetically soak up his problems. You must do so judiciously, of course, and graciously, so that the talker feels that both of you have shared each other's troubles, not that he effusively spilled his own troubles unilaterally. A saint who is in full sympathy with the problems of others will have this judiciousness and grace, as a gift peculiar to his saintliness. But what about the rest of us who are not saints, who still have too much of the old Adam in us to give up our share of the conversational pie?

It seems to me that if we want to do both, get joy out of conversation, yet talk to please others rather than ourselves, we must find people who have on their minds things similar to what is on our mind. If we don't do that, then, not being saints, we will just start talking to please ourselves and bore the others, or we will properly submerge ourselves, but will not be able to take it long. We will soon come to feel that conversation at such a price of self-denial is too expensive — and withdraw to a game of solitaire!

Luckily, while everybody wants to talk about his own troubles, there is a vast difference in the troubles of people and people. While those of millions differ too much from our own to interest us, those of other millions are very much attuned to our own. When we find such, talking to please them becomes a pleasure, not a frustration. If someone talks about his gains and losses on the stock market, and you have just taken a flyer on the market yourself, you will have little trouble saying what will please him and also yourself. If I am a college teacher, and an accountant friend keeps telling me about his efforts toward promotion or plans to change position, I am quickly bored. But if another college teacher tells about his problems of promotion or change, then I find it quite interesting even though I do not bring my own position into the talk. Having no wife, but having sometimes hoped and feared to have one, I find someone's telling how he "manages" his wife not uninteresting. But having no children, and no likelihood of ever having any, I find it almost intolerable to listen to someone's detailed accounts of his own. Remembering my rules of conversation, I do of course force myself to please him rather than myself, but I take good care not to have to do it a second time.

It seems to me it is a necessary qualification of a good conversationalist not only to avoid boring others but also to avoid being bored himself. So as not to have to suffer twice what does not at all interest me, I first of all consider avoiding getting into a conversation with the person altogether. If I find that impractical, in that he lives next door or works in the same shop or is related to my second cousin or if I need him for some of his other qualities, then I discover which of the several things that might be on his mind are on my mind too. Thereupon, when I meet him, I maneuver the talk around to those topics. In this way, we can both be happy.

Whatever the secrets of friendship are, one of them happily is similarity of interests. People with such a common bond of problems and interests link themselves together in all sorts of clubs and associations. Most of them do little more essentially than offer a platform for conversation. The "joker," however, in this natural dispensation is, that while Providence has directed that most friendships obey the conditions for good conversation, love is erratic, unpredictable. It is blind, some ancients said. What they mean is that it does not happen on the basis of conversational compatibility. Two people, who if it were not for sex, could not talk interestedly to one another for ten minutes, are by some mysterious force drawn into a partnership that means daily conversation of hours-on-end for life. Thus two difficulties are born. One is that after love has become a habit, their union not having been based on any conversational compatibility, they begin to bore each other. Furthermore, since in the first flush of the sex attraction they had seemed to enjoy talking to each other, they make the mistake of imagining that their subsequent lack of a conversational bond springs from a decline of love.

At this point, disaster looms, unless at least one of them realizes that nothing is essentially wrong with either that was not wrong before. They simply never had a common level of interests, but in the agitations and illusions of courtship they had not had time to notice this. Their best hope now is that the one who recognizes their true problem of conversational incompatibility determines to sacrifice his conversational interests to the other's. If he or she selflessly listens to the mate's troubles, determines upon heroic self-abnegation, a certain happiness can be achieved. What is to be hoped is that God will rush to the rescue by giving the wiser one the grace so to identify himself with the other's problems that they become his own, vicariously, and therefore no longer boring to hear. It is not a conversational ideal for marriage, but it is the best that can be done when people marry who are natively on different levels of understanding and interest.

The second difficulty in such a marriage is that affecting their circle of friends. A circle of friends, conversationally compatible to one, will be beneath or above the other. This presents a serious problem, and again can only be solved by the self-abnegation of one of them. Let's assume that a husband who likes to talk about economics wants to draw his wife who enjoys talking only about groceries into a circle compatible to him. If we assume further that for job or social reasons it is unwise for him to sacrifice himself and subside into her circle, so that she must come into his, what is to be done? In such circumstances, she can become an acceptable and harmless member of his circle, only if she will train herself to say very little but to listen very sympathetically. If she were to persist, however, in rattling away about what is on her mind, she will frustrate the others in the group, and drive her husband to apologize for her.

Where love and marriage do not complicate matters, the wise course in conversation is to choose one's friends from among people whose range and level of interests resemble one's own. Then all can talk about their almost mutual troubles enjoyably. But whatever one's conversational companions, once one is with them, the rules of good conversation, the right attitudes, must prevail. In fact the less congenial our friends, the more essential they are. St. Paul's injunction that one's "manner of speaking must always be gracious," always obtains. The two fundamental attitudes of a gracious conversationalist must be, first, always to try to please others rather than himself, secondly, always to study to be tactful.

Regarding the first, Dean Swift wrote, ". . . when any man speaks in company, it is to be supposed he does it for his hearer's sake, and not his own." Elsewhere he remarks,

Few are qualified to shine in company; but it is in most men's power to be agreeable. The reason, therefore, why conversation runs so low at present, is not the defect of understanding, but pride, vanity, ill-nature, affectation, singularity, positiveness, or some other \ice, the effect of wrong education.

Always, in this matter of conversation, one is driven back upon the conviction that the central requirement of a good conversationalist is a sincere desire to make others feel content. A really good person, one is made to think, cannot be a disagreeable talker, and a selfish, evil-minded person, no matter what his art, cannot be a wholly acceptable one. In conversation as in everything else, a good tree brings forth good fruit. Our Lord's words, "a good man utters good words from his store of goodness," seem quite literally applicable to conversation. This goodness must not be understood as a sort of pharisaical goodness, but as a deep unselfish desire to be helpful to others.

Anyone, therefore, who really wants to improve his conversation ought to get down on his knees and pray Jesus for the humble spirit with which He washed the feet of His disciples and told them in their "turn ... to wash each other's feet" (John 13). He should pray to live up to the implications in Christ's words when His disciples "had disputed among themselves, which of them should be the greatest." Jesus said, "If any man desire to be first, he shall be the last of all, and the minister of all" (Mark 9:33, 34)- He should pray for the grace and strength in his discourses with his fellow man to adjust his pleasure to theirs, to keep the old Adam in check, who forever craves to outshine all others. He should pray and resolve that in all conversation his first concern will be to please himself only by pleasing his neighbors.

This determination, reconfirmed frequently, will by the grace of instinct cause a person to avoid most of the pitfalls of conversation. It will intuitively propel you toward those things which will increase the edge of liveliness in your talk, which will make you not only negatively but positively an agreeable conversationalist.

Along with this determination to talk more for other's than for your own pleasure, the constant resolve to practice a premeditated tactfulness is necessary. Tact is, of course, comprised in St. Paul's injunction always to be gracious, and it is also implied in the policy of talking to please others more than one's self. But this virtue requires more than good will. It needs the habit of constant forethought. It must be founded on the acquired soul characteristic of sympathizing with others to such an extent as to see things from their point of view.

Some apparently well-intentioned persons acquire a reputation of unintentionally "stepping on other people's toes," of "rubbing people the wrong way," and of "putting their foot in every time they open their mouths." People like that simply are not really and truly kind and loving at heart, however they may appear superficially. "A man, to be greatly good," says the poet Shelley, "must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own" (Criticism). That is what tactless people have not done. They have not made it a practice always to think before they talk, always to reflect at least a moment how a question looks from the other's point of view. To do so requires good will — and also a strong will. It requires the habitual determination to take a quick look at the other fellow's side of a question before talking.

The involuntary offenses against tact are legion. A girl says, "I got an A on my last theme in Professor Cole's English." "Oh," answers the other, "I hear Professor Cole gives lots of A's." Once a lady, meeting me with friends, happily declared, "I feel quite proud. Dr. App has invited me to talk to his drama class on Broadway plays I saw." Thereupon the student in the group pipes up, "Oh, yes, Dr. App is always getting people to address us." Once I said to a hardware dealer, "My, that's a fine new product." Thereupon he brightly underlined my ignorant enthusiasm by saying, "It's wonderful. We have been handling it for the past fifteen years." A fellow proudly announces that he had a date with Louise Mulligan last night, whereupon the other, not meaning ill but doing it just the same, responds, "That's fine. I guess Louise has by this time been dated by half the fellows in town." A friend of mine announced that he had just made a down payment on a new house. I congratulated him, when the fellow next to me chimed in,"

Everybody is saying these new houses will never stand up. They are made of the worst materials." A person invited to dinner sees boiled ham, and exclaims, "Oh, mother only yesterday bought the hugest smoked ham." Jokes have been written about people who when somebody says, "I've just caught an awful cold," reply sweetly, "Too bad. Colds are dangerous things. I read where fifteen people died of pneumonia last month."

All this is a thoughtless, involuntary, nonmalicious tactlessness. In addition there is an enormous amount of malicious tactlessness, meanness masquerading as naivete innocent "dumbness." A woman who in a mixed group says, "That happened when I was a freshman, and you, Susan, remember, were a senior," is indulging in a bit of disguised malice. More than is realized of the seemingly unintentioned tactlessness is conscious, if disguised, malice. Those who indulge in this type simply need a radical change of heart before they belong in good society.

But tactlessness is equally painful, whether unintentional or malicious. In this respect, Shaw's contention, that a fool is as bad as a sinner, holds. And it always comes from not regarding the other person's feelings and points of view. As it is, there are very few people who are never guilty of tactlessness. Sometimes surely, when facts have been withheld from us, one cannot be blamed for it. Once a couple maneuvered me into discussing the evils of divorce. A week later I learned from others that each had been previously divorced. I shuddered at the many things I had said — things I should have said differently had I known this fact.

Yet, in this instance, it was they who violated a courtesy of conversation. A cultured conversationalist will take good care to apprize anyone of facts which, if he does not know, will naturally lead him into saying the wrong thing. This is above all the duty of a host or hostess. If the partition of Ireland is likely to become a topic of discussion, and an Englishwoman, hidden perhaps under an Irish name, is present, anyone of the company who knows this ought to find a gracious, perhaps playful, way of revealing this circumstance. But if no one else does, then it is the duty of the Englishwoman herself to forestall future embarrassment by saying some such thing as, "When it comes to matters Irish I am a divided person, for my husband was Irish, but my parents were English." It has often seemed to me that people who unwarningly let others talk themselves into inadvertently tactless remarks should be ostracized from good company. They would appear to have the mentality of eavesdroppers or spies. It is no defense to say, "Well, nobody should ever say anything offensive anyway." It is true that one should always treat all topics in so fair and generous a manner that no impartial hearer should be offended by it. But no matter how fairly one treats a subject, it can be very embarrassing to find that the subject has a personal meaning for one of the listeners. It is certainly proper to talk about the evils of drinking, but unwittingly to do so in the presence of a drunkard, no matter how fairly it is done, would be painful.

Among the various pitfalls for tact, the most specific and treacherous lies in the question. Questions, notwithstanding Samuel Johnson's remark that "Questioning is not a mode of conversation among gentlemen," are as necessary to conversation as primers are to motors. Yet, as Francis Bacon in "Of Discourse" cautions the conversationalist, ". . . . let his questions not be troublesome." It is even more important to warn against their being tactless and indiscreet. Goldsmith in She Stoops to Conquer warns: "Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs." I doubt whether there is a person alive who has not squirmed under the impact of an indiscreet question which he did not know how to evade and which to answer violated his privacy or a confidence. Worse even, perhaps every one of us can remember at sometime having thoughtlessly asked such a question. People who are not scrupulously tactful in asking questions, both in what they ask and how they ask, do not belong in polite society.

In all questioning you should observe certain cautions and rules. By this time most people know that they are not, in general company, to inquire of anyone his age, nationality, religion, or income. But you must be cautious beyond that. Before asking any question, you should reflect if any circumstances might make it embarrassing or unwelcome. Under circumstances, questions like, "Where is your wife tonight?" (or husband, sweetheart, boy friend), or "Were you to early or late Mass on Sunday?" or "What did John give you for your birthday?" or "Was that your sister I saw you with Wednesday evening?" might well be unwelcome. Unthinkingly asking a person what make of car he drives (if he should happen to have none), where he works (if the position is a humble or menial one), where she lives (if the street or quarter is a shabby one), where he went to college (if he happens not to have attended any) produces unnecessary embarrassment or humiliation. Of course, if you have reason to surmise that a person is a banker or drives a custom-made or lives on Society Hill, then by all means ask about it, but otherwise confine yourself to provocative suggestions. If you say to someone, "At least two people I met here tonight live on Park Avenue," he will, if he is content with his own address, easily enough volunteer where he lives.

You should avoid asking anyone those perfunctory or conventional questions which he could not answer in the negative without offending. When you ask a guest, "Did you sleep well?" "Did you like the dinner?" what can the poor man say? Ordinarily, questions such as, "Do you like your teacher?" "Do you get along well with your mother-in-law?" "Did you enjoy your honeymoon?" and a dozen similar ones, should not be asked, because they cannot be answered with a no without offense to someone. If you merely mention honeymoon to either one of a couple who truly enjoyed it, you will set off the testimony for it; and if this reaction does not follow, you know that it would not have been felicitous to ask about it directly.

You should avoid asking anyone fact, quiz, or achievement questions, to which he may have to acknowledge ignorance. Bacon rightly said that if you address a question to someone skilled to answer it, you will give him "occasion to please" himself in speaking. But only teachers in classrooms have the sour privilege of directing questions to victims who are likely not to know the answers! Even such common questions as whether one knows or has read a certain book, or whether one knows such and such a person in some institution or locality produce a slight frustration and humiliation if one has to reply in the negative. The proper technique is to name the book or the person invitingly. If you say, "So you studied at Marquette! A friend of mine, Dr. Archer, teaches English there," your companion will naturally say, "Oh, yes, I know him," or he can gracefully evade the suggestion, if he doesn't know him, and say, "Talking of English, Marquette is one university that doesn't believe in letting English down just to push football up."

Reluctantly, before finishing with tact and questioning, I insert a caution to grandparents, uncles and aunts, elderly teachers, and, in some respects, parents, too, not to invade young people's privacy with questions they would not think of asking their equals. Being an elder relative, real or adopted, does not entitle one unceremoniously to ask one's nieces and nephews their age, grades, and "inhibitions." A girl of fifteen may not care to tell that she is fifteen, not eighteen; that she had C's in school, not A's; that her dress was handed down from her sister. She may not even like to proclaim some of her virtues such as, that she has never been kissed, doesn't smoke, has never tasted a Martini, or has so far done the jitterbug only with her girl friends. There are similar touchy or dubious points in a boy's life.

Elders have no right unceremoniously to question young people upon such matters. At best, such questions cause secret embarrassment and resentment, at worst they lead to a habit of dishonesty. Even parents should be careful not to ask bluntly questions that a child may be tempted to, and can easily, evade with a lie. In general elders should employ the same tact in questioning young people as in questioning their equals. This very tact and consideration, if accompanied by the ingenuity of throwing out opportunities and suggestions, will easily enough elicit all the confidences and information to which an elder has a right and which it is proper and wise for the young person to give.

In short, as with teachers so with talkers, by their questions you shall know them as much as by their answers, and tact knows no exemptions of age or propinquity or caste. The purpose of conversation is to lift the morale of people, to tie them into a closer communion without violating their privacy or destroying their individuality. Obviously, intentional detraction, belittling, and malice are utterly detestable. But equally unfortunate is all involuntary tactlessness. Good people who want to be agreeable conversationalists should think twice before rushing into a comment or a question. They will throw a quick glance at the other's viewpoint. In that light they will then see that without sacrificing truth many a touchy matter may just as well be left unsaid, and many another may with a little ingenuity be reworded so as to lose its sting. The climate of good conversation requires that you not only want to be tactful, but study how to be so, and, that you determine firmly to talk less for your own than for the company's satisfaction.