Help for One-sided Conversations

When getting someone to talk about themselves backfires

Early in our marriage, my husband and I had a couple over for dinner. They belonged to a church we had recently joined and we wanted to get to know them better. We cleaned up the house, put thought into the night’s menu, did the cooking, mixed the drinks and had them over. Over dinner—candlelit on the back deck—we were genuinely curious about them, asking thoughtful questions about their lives: what their life’s journeys looked like, how they met, what challenges they were facing...

About an hour into this, I started asking myself, Was this conversation ever going to turn to us? It didn’t. Our guests left our home visibly elated to have held the spotlight for so long and to have had the chance to open their lives to us. My husband and I never got a word in about our lives. We were never asked. We felt rudely treated (though we didn’t show it) and were struck by the self-centeredness of this couple. We were honestly pretty offended.

Could we / should we have taken action when it was clear the conversation had become so one-sided? Looking back, I believe the answer is Yes.

There is advice out there—you see it everywhere—that says the key to being a great conversationalist involves asking curious questions to draw your conversational partner out. As an introvert, I’ve used this method a lot: It’s easy to hide behind a steady stream of questions, to keep the focus on the other person. But if you’re hoping for the type of true connection that is the starting point for every relationship, you need to get past letting the other person drone on about themselves. Yes, they’ll light up if you find out what they’re passionate about and draw them out about that topic. That’s definitely got a place in a conversation. But I’d argue that it’s not a real conversation if you’re simply asking questions. It’s an interview. The fact is, you’re not truly connecting. Your convo partner will leave having learned nothing about you. 

A better path is to be intentional about taking the spotlight off of your conversational partner. Find a moment to interject something about yourself that relates to what they’ve been saying. Then, shift the conversation to other topics. If they pivot back to themselves, you’re better off cutting the conversation short and looking for opportunities to connect elsewhere. If, on the other hand, they take your hint and move onto other topics, consider that a win. You’ve made a real connection.