What's the point of conversation?

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Exchange facts.

Yes.


The last time this subject came up you wrote a really long, really cool post about your epiphany when you realized the truth of this. Wish I could paraphrase but I can't remember the wording quite well enough and don't want to horribly misrepresent you. But I think there wa something about an energy undercurrent.

"The medium is the message" - I don't understand what this means. I do get what you mean by an undercurrent tho. There's definitely a feely-ness to good conversation which you can follow up to a point, but often it isn't there for me.

Also, going back to the OP, I'd really like to hear from any NT's on this...

I think that the point of conversation is to entertain ourselves and others.

"The medium" is the means that information is transmitted: talking, writing, pictures etc. In a conversation, people talking to each other is the medium. The true information that is being conveyed is often not the literal content of the words. The mere fact that they have decided to converse with each other helps define their relationship. How they do it also defines it. It can be a form of loving bonding or a form of sizing up the other person as a potential competitor or friend. The message isn't in the actual words people say to each other. It's in the fact they chose to spoke and how they chose to say it.

Since tomorrow is the anniversary of Sep. 11, 2001 and I'm American, I have particular memories of that day. I saw it on TV wih my daughter (a baby at the time) and it was so upsetting. I screamed at the TV which caused her to cry in fear. So I calmed myself and calmed her. But I had to do something because I was so upset by this turn of events. So I went outside and walked down the street with her and just kept walking until I saw a person. It was nobody I knew. Some random woman. I started a conversation about seeing the plane hit the building on TV and isn't that terrible. She agreed that it was terrible. We went on like that for a while until we both felt better and were able to continue on with our day.

So what actually happened in that conversation with the random woman? The literal information we exchanged wasn't terribly crucial. I saw a plane fly into a building on TV and she had seen the exact same thing on TV. Neither of us got any new facts about the event from that conversation. But the true information was that I was in a stressed out a state and I talked to the first stranger I saw about it and she responded in kind because she was stressed out too. Our mutual stress and the fact that we both wanted to talk to literally any fellow human about this was the medium. This medium said, "I am scared about what just happened and I need to know that we're all in this together and we can help each other stay calm". That was the true message. And that is a timely example of "the medium is the message".

Bump. Janissy, I love your insight, you're good at explaining this stuff. I've gotten a lot out of reading your posts.

I remember there was a similar discussion, I think Monsterland started it, about that elusive or theoretic 'energy' transfer that NTs do when they speak.

I've realised that it's not just the words coming out of my mouth that people pick up on. Mostly it's the 'shape' of my medium - the tone, pitch, speed of voice; the positioning and attitude of my body and face.

I don't know how it works, but I find that if I hold a certain intention (say, to be kind, helpful, pleasant) towards people during conversation, it somehow modulates my communication in a positive way.

*sigh*

"Conversation" or "smal talk" is a social bonding exercise. Suppossedly "meaningless" chatter serves exactly the same purpose as the "social grooming" exhibited by monkeys.

Monkeys will pick fleas and ticks off each other to form friendships and establish relationships. People "talk" to accomplish the same effect. People are social creatures; we've evolved through millions of years to be this way, and civilized life is only possible through mutual cooperation. It makes perfectly logical sense for people to want to form social bonds, even if the means by which they achieve them aren't immediately explainable via "logic."

Honestly, I don't understand when people say conversation/ small talk is "meaningless." It has a very practical function. If you don't get it, study primate behavior. Much of what humans do on a daily basis can be best explained by observing our cousins.

--XFG

And according to what I was told, not small talking puts people off. I'm the type of person that only has a conversation if it's something I care about, but if it gets boring, I move on, and often I say "hi" then get right down to the reason why I needed to talk to the person in the first place. I was told that was the main reason why I find it difficult to make friends.

Yes.

My personal take on the situation is that non-human animals have a variety of methods at their disposal to "advertise" their intentions. They use body language, smell, vocalizations, ect. For example, male tigers urinate on trees to ward-off other males and present their virility to females. It's all about social communication.

Humans have lousy hearing and smell, so our primary means of "advertising" ourselves to each other is "small talk." The dreaded "small talk" is really just a way for another person to gauge your thoughts, feelings, and motivations. If you don't respond, you will be shunned as "unfriendly" because your potential conversation partner is unable to discern any information about you. Even when "small talk" isn't directly about your interests and personality, another person can typically guess at your general disposition based on your responses to seemingly illogical statements (i.e. "Wow, it sure is hot out today!").

When two dogs who don't know each other meet, they often sniff each other's butt to determing "who's who." Your unwillingness to sniff someone else's butt will make it hard for you to gain friends. "Small talk" is not about logic or exchanging useful information, it's about butt sniffing. Not that understanding the purpose behind small talk makes it any easier, mind you, it just makes the universe slightly less confusing.

--XFG

BTW, most NTs don't share my pragmatic view of their social rituals, so I would keep this mum.

It depends. Every conversation is different. It depends on the topic, and depends on the people involved.

Conversation at a party, between several people is very different from a conversation between two highly intellectual people, even if the party is attended entirely by intellectuals.

The purpose of it might be perceived differently by each of two people when two are involved. One might think it's about sharing ideas, and the other might think it's about influencing the others opinions.

It depends on so many things. Context (both social setting and topical), the people involved (their perceptions and paradigms), are probably the two most important things.

Depending on the setting, topic and people involved, every answer given here could at one time or another, be correct. Sometimes, every answer could be true all at once, each applying to at least one individual involved.

See, I had no clue that people were picking up that much info. See, I thought that even though I have other aspie traits, I could read facial expressions well and that was a problem. But maybe the stuff I read is kinda basic, I really don't know if it's natural or if someone taught me at an early age, same with eye contact. When I take social skills tests, I know what the correct answer is, but I don't do it, my therapist and old school reports back it up. It's like it's all intellectual understanding, not natural, I dunno.

This is very difficult for me to believe.

And yet it's true. Comparing it to dogs sniffing each other's butts is a vulgar way to put it. I prefer Moog's (actually Marshall Mcluhan's) way of putting it: "The medium is the message". But the essence comes out the same.

Hah, yeah, I can't claim that one. I got well into Mcluhan recently.

So then if I were a tiger, I would not pee on trees. I can't imagine why I would WANT to pee on trees as a passive aggressive way to get things done. If only the tigers around me didn't care whether or not I peed on trees, there would be no problem! [/metaphor]

Tigers pee on trees because it's how tigers communicate specific intentions. Your personal preferences as an individual tiger wouldn't negate the fact that tiger's urinating on trees conveys certain types of information.



I deal with it by not expecting the majority of humanity to recalibrate their socialization to meet my idiosyncratic needs.

--XFG