What kind of person-to-person conversaton do you most often hope to have?

I love to have conversations like they do in the late, great sitcom Seinfeld. Intelligent… witty.. but completely nonsensical or absurd..

I enjoy discussing religion (clearly) because it seems to me to be the greatest question of all time and by extension the greatest subject… but I also enjoy discussions about the great barrier reef.. or space travel… it really all just depends on who I’m talking to..

I prefer small talk, such as how did school go, for the kids, and what are we going to do tomorrow, what happened when you went to pick up the take out and what did your doctor/boss say, what did you think of the weather this week/month?

I love talking about culture. I also just like hearing life updates. And discussing social ills and how to solve them. And sadly I also love gossip.

What makes it great? Good exchange. Being able to talk back and forth easily with one another and to stay positively engaged with one another. Good energy. And I always find it easier too if the other person is good at small talk or filling the gaps (as I’m not great at it, lol).

If someone wants to talk about something I’m not quite interested in I try to find some part of it that interests me so we can keep the conversation going. But if I can’t find anything I let it stall out in hopes we can get a good one going.

Of course most of my discussions are small talk, or information gathering (what time is that meeting again?) but the conversations I most enjoy are about deep things with deep people. Politics, philosophy, religion, the state of the world, etc. I love a lively, intelligent debate. Sadly, these are few and far between in everyday life. Probably why I’m here so often!

Me too, NMW, I’m into that straight faced silliness type of stuff. a balanced amount, mind you. witty small talk.. stuff like: “still alive?” instead of “how are you?”.. crude stuff in moderation is fun too.

i don’t seem to be into talking about myself or people i know.. trivia seems to bore me for the most part. though i do like to know the most important stuff. (who’s bday is it, who was hospitalized, who’s taking on what kind of new project) but not so much the gossip parts. even talking too much about the news/sports i don’t care for.

love ideas, hearing ideas. funny ones too. anything creative.. (i guess that’s wit? i dunno) philosophical arguing.. any topic as long as it boils down to philosophy somehow = good stuff.

I want it to be a challenging, stimulating, intelligent conversation about sociological patterns and philosophical principles as well as the future of the world

I try to keep my person-to-person conversation separated: at work, I want it to be something related to my field of expertise, world economics, finance, I want someone that directly tells me if I am doing something wrong or makes me learn something new, providing another point of view to keep getting things done better and faster. I don’t like so much when people (totally or mainly) agree with me, right or wrong I may be.

With my friends I try to avoid those topics as much as possible. Philosophy is much more interesting.

Whatever I hope or plan, almost all of my conversations end up being about my daughter. Which often interests the other person too, since it has been a big issue in the media. It’s usually others (even strangers in the street) that start it first.

@jack79
Is your daughter someone we would know?

A sharing of ideas and a joke. Without the jokes the ideas become pointless.

Honestly i’d love to have mor conversations that don’t involve “Where does it hurt?”
“Is there a discharge?” and “Please turn your head and cough”.
This is the reason i spend so much time in the chat room…. out here chances for conversation are… let’s say rare.

I like discussions of substantive issues, where you have to think and inquire and you learn something. This could include sharing about your day with your family, although sometimes it’s difficult to get the kids to take this seriously. “What’d you do today?” “Stuff.” “What kind of stuff?” “Stuff stuff.”

Typically, if I’m meeting someone new, it’ll start with questions about each others work and interests. Eventually we’ll find a topic of mutual interest and start digging into that. At work, it’s kind of easy, because people are always making presentations about new research.

I’m not too fond of small talk. It makes me nervous, wondering why we are bothering. Even in an elevator, my supply of small talk gets eaten up in one floor, and sometimes I’ll get an interesting conversation going by the time we get to where we’re going. Sigh. Then, it’s out the door and, “We’ll talk about this later.” But we never do.

A conversation where our emotions touch each other.

I don’t like to put that kind of pressure on my conversational day. Hopes were made to be dashed.

I like the kind of discussions that just happen.

@Bagardbilla no, you wouldn’t, but people in the country where I live do. It’s quite complicated, and the hardest part is finding a solution without hurting her.