Good conversations have lots of doorknobs — Good conversations have lots of doorknobs
- Author: Adam Mastroianni
- Full Title: Good conversations have lots of doorknobs
Good conversations have lots of doorknobs
- Type:
- Tags: #funsies
- URL: https://www.experimental-history.com/p/good-conversations-have-lots-of-doorknobs
Highlights
- Similarly, refusing to take the spotlight in a conversation may seem generous, but in fact can burden the other person to keep the show going. (“What’s up?” is one of the most dreadful texts to get; it’s short for “Hello, I’d like you to entertain me now.”) And asking your partner question after question and resenting them when they don’t return the favor isn’t generosity; it’s social entrapment, like not telling your friends that it’s your birthday and then seething that they didn’t get you cake. (View Highlight)
- What matters most, then, is not how much we give or take, but whether we offer and accept affordances. Takers can present big, graspable doorknobs (“I get kinda creeped out when couples treat their dogs like babies”) or not (“Let me tell you about the plot of the movie Must Love Dogs…”). Good taking makes the other side want to take too (“I know! My friends asked me to be the godparent to their Schnauzer, it’s so crazy” “What?? Was there a ceremony?”). Similarly, some questions have doorknobs (“Why do you think you and your brother turned out so different?”) and some don’t (“How many of your grandparents are still living?”). But even affordance-less giving can be met with affordance-ful taking (“I have one grandma still alive, and I think a lot about all this knowledge she has––how to raise a family, how to cope with tragedy, how to make chocolate zucchini bread––and how I feel anxious about learning from her while I still can”). (View Highlight)