Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That: A Modern Guide to Manners by Henry Alford

Author:Henry Alford [Alford, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography, Biography, Communication, Non-Fiction, Personal Growth, Personal Memoirs, Self-Help, Social Skills, Success
ISBN: 0446557668
Google: veA5AQAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00BJXYTDQ
Publisher: Twelve
Published: 2012-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

Talking: How to Prepare for It

“Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought,” says Emily Post, in Etiquette, and “not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.”

I agree—yet the chatty bore steals the spotlight of Post’s hypothetical party, and also of this chapter of her book. My own experience suggests that the overly garrulous are, in fact, not conversation’s chief nemesis—they can be gently interrupted, or given a bit of direction, or, worst-case scenario, abandoned.

The worst are those who refuse to engage or initiate or remark or ask. You can bring Muhammad down off the mountain, but you can’t make the mountain say anything remotely interesting to Muhammad: It’s a mountain. Rocks and stuff.

Conversational openers among strangers are, of course, highly challenging to formulate, and tend toward either the obvious (“How do you know Tim and Erica?” “How long have you worked for the company?”) or the too-clever (“Which Food Network personality would you like to marry, and which would you like as your personal chef?”). I would ask that anyone who hears either variety try to be indulgent—those of us who tend to seize the reins of the conversation are trying our damnedest, and if you can just bear with us as we sputter to a start, we’ll thank you mightily. Maybe, now and again, make it worth your trouble. Senators in ancient Rome hired people called nomenclators to follow them around and introduce them to people; sadly, most of us today are heavy with nomenclatorlessness.

We all have our MOs. I tend to ask a lot of questions, and then, ultimately, to become bored or irritated when my partner doesn’t ask any back. But a series of questions isn’t necessarily the best way to go—many people are made uncomfortable by the implied hot lights. Monologizing, too, is a perilous tack to take; as my brother, Fred, once prescribed, “Never give a thorough answer to ‘How are you?’ ”

A smoother route to charmed interaction may be a statement about the room or situation in which you currently find yourselves. (“Is this flocked wallpaper? That word always sounds so dirty.” “This is the first boat I’ve been on that hasn’t capsized. Yet.”) I remember one particularly beguiling opening salvo. After I had exchanged names with someone at a Christmas gathering in a crowded restaurant, she said to me, “Look at this, look at this!” and pointed to another guest who was brushing half a tray’s worth of decorated cookies into a handbag, presumably her own. Mouths agape, my new acquaintance and I became immediate and lasting friends.

I love it when a stranger whom I’ve met at a gathering opens with an explanatory salvo: “I went to college with Rick, and both our kids play on the softball team, though my Sean is just a little more talented than Rick Jr.” Blammo: Suddenly I have acres of ground to cover with this person. I had a very lively conversation with the woman who walked up to me at a gathering once and said, “I’ve been kicked twice at this party.

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