Conversationally Speaking

by Alan Garner

  If someone seems uncomfortable around you, the problem may not lie in the topic, your breath, or your personal style. The problem may simply be that you are standing too close.

  A plumbing contractor complained to me that both his customers and his neighbors seemed edgy around him and backed away whenever he talked to them. When he tried to re-establish what he felt was a comfortable distance, they would back away again and it sometimes seemed as though he was chasing them around the room. He added that washing his mouth five times daily with mouthwash hadn’t helped in the least.

  I suggested to this gentleman, as I backed into my desk in a futile attempt to get farther away, that what he considered a comfortable distance for social and business exchanges was, to many others including myself, an intimate distance. With coaching, he learned to place himself four feet away and then let others decide where to stand.

  The effective use of space requires that you consider more than how far you are from others. Your relative positions are important as well. When you speak to children or to grown-ups who are seated, if you want to make your communication a sharing process between equals, a communion, put yourself at their height instead of hovering over them.

  When you sit with someone at a table, you can encourage emotional closeness and unity by taking a seat on an adjacent, rather than opposite, side of the table and even by sitting facing the same way and turning slightly.

  POSTURE

  The way you position your body “tells” others how available you are for contact and how interested you are in what they have to say.

  Crossing your arms, crossing your legs away from the other person, and pressing your legs together are closed positions, which may well indicate to others that you are tense or uninterested in contact. However, if you press your legs against each other or cross them too tightly; others may well conclude that you are sexually interested. (Remember: It doesn’t matter what your mental state really is. Other people can’t read your mind. To them, you’re thinking whatever you show them you’re thinking.)

  Uncrossed arms and legs crossed toward the other person or spread slightly apart are open positions, which will probably be interpreted as signaling that you are relaxed and interested in making closer contact.

  Facing others directly (as opposed to “giving them the shoulder”) and leaning forward are two other very important ways that you can show that you have high regard for your conversational partners and are fully involved in what is going on between the two of you. (If you are conversing with two others, you will probably point the upper part of your body at the one and the lower part at the second.)

  Observing these positions in others will give you a good indication of how they feel. If, for example, you’re ready to close a business deal or issue an invitation, it’s wise to wait until the other person is in an open position. That will probably mean he’s feeling relaxed and will be more receptive to your suggestions.

  Body language, however, isn’t a 100-percent sure indication. A man crossing his arms may just be cold; a woman crossing her legs away from you may simply be doing so out of habit. One of my aunts, for example, always crosses her right leg over her left—no matter the topic or where her conversational partners are seated. So pay attention to these silent signals and adjust to what you see, but be mindful that appearances can be deceiving. As the great semanticist S.I. Hayakawa has often said, “The map is not the territory.”

  One final note: Recent research has shown that assuming a mirror image of a conversational partner will often help you to quickly establish rapport. For example, when someone crosses a left leg over a right, you cross your right leg over your left; when someone leans forward and to the right, you lean forward and to the left. The more closely your body assumes a mirror image, the more likely it is that you will both feel a strong sense of connection. Don’t be obvious—avoid mirroring gestures or ticks, and after the other person shifts position, wait a while before you shift. To bring someone from a closed position to an open one, first mirror the closed position long enough to establish a good connection, then gradually shift to an open position. If the other person doesn’t follow suit, return to the original position and begin again.

  TOUCH

  Touching is a silent way of saying, “I care about you” and “I like you.” Often, touching expresses sentiments that words alone can’t convey at all. Two “touchy” areas which can generally be improved upon are shaking hands and hugging.

  Your handshake tells others how you feel about them and yourself. Generally speaking, a loose handshake is interpreted as signaling personal weakness and/or disinterest in the other person, while a firm handshake indicates greater personal strength and far more warmth and liking. If you want to show someone still greater warmth, put your left hand on top of her right hand while shaking.

  A more dramatic way to convey liking through touch is by hugging. Many people fail to hug because they’re afraid of being caught in the position of holding their arms open wide and having the other person not respond. Well, you need no longer concern yourself with that possibility if you follow this technique devised to help me with this problem by my friend and fellow Conversationally Speaking instructor, Robert Badal:

  When you approach the person you wish to hug, extend your right hand and shake hands while placing your left hand on her right shoulder and moving closer. Nine times out of ten, as you reach for her shoulder, she’ll put her left arm around your waist, drop the handshake, and hug you. If that doesn’t happen, you can simply continue to shake hands and pat her on the shoulder. Either way, you get to relax and enjoy!

  MAKING EYE CONTACT

  Many people consider the eyes to be the most expressive part of the human body. Poets have long referred to them as “the windows to the soul.” So important are they to communication that when the police want to protect the identity of someone whose picture they publish, they think it sufficient to cover only the eyes.

  Making eye contact is a prerequisite for successfully interacting in social situations. Remember: You can’t not communicate. So if you avoid looking at someone, he will assume that you are anxious, dishonest, or more interested in what is going on wherever you are looking. Further, avoiding eye contact deprives you of the opportunity to see what effect your messages are having on others and to adjust accordingly.

  Making eye contact is a powerful sign of respect and attention. It says to your conversational partners, “I’m more interested in you right now than I am in anything else.” While conversing, you will generally look at others for between one and ten seconds at a time, generally more while listening than while talking. If you have the floor and don’t want to give it up while you gather your thoughts, avoid making eye contact. When you have finished, your gaze will indicate that you are ready for a response.

  One particularly important nonverbal signal that you can’t control in yourself but can sometimes observe in others lies in the pupils, the black spots in the middle of the eyes. Men’s and women’s pupils expand for three reasons: (1) They are on cocaine. (2) They are exposed to decreased light. (3) They are seeing something they like. Carpet traders in Persia have been aware of this third reason for centuries and use it to advantage. When deciding how much a buyer wants a carpet, they pay little attention to how nonchalant or critical he seems. Instead, they look at his eyes. If his pupils expand, the trader knows his customer is interested. On a more social note, one of my psychology professors once replied, when asked how to know if someone wants to be kissed, “Look to the eyes for the answer. If you see the pupils grow, then this is the time and this is the place and you are the one!”

  NODDING

  Nodding plays a little-recognized role in shaping communication. If you don’t nod at all (which, by the way, is a more common phenomenon than you might think), others will probably assume that you disagree with them, are confused, or are disinterested. a single nod indicates agreement. Repeated smaller and slower nods indicate general understandi
ng and will tend to encourage others to expand upon what they’re saying. Repeated faster nods signal that you understand what is being said, agree with it, and want to interrupt.

  SMILING

  Smiling is probably the one most important way you can signal your interest and turn people on to you. It takes seventy-two muscles to frown, but only twenty-three to smile—and smiling has much more pleasurable results. A smile sends positive messages, such as “I like you,” “I enjoy being with you,” and “You can be at ease with me.” Since others can’t see what you’re thinking, if you fail to smile they’ll probably think you’re uninterested in them or that you are just generally cold and aloof.

  When was the last time you saw what your smile looks like? Few people ever smile in the mirror and consequently, many are unaware that their smiles don’t look like smiles to other people. I’m particularly interested in this problem for a personal reason.

  I used to go around UCLA with a smile I called my “reserved interest smile.” It was designed to show people that I was friendly and together, but wasn’t desperate to get to know them. My smile never got me any positive responses, and so I concluded that I wasn’t very good looking and that UCLA was the least friendly place on earth. After a while, I pretty much gave up smiling there altogether.

  One day at an outdoor cafe I frequented in Lund, Sweden, a waitress I liked sat down with me and asked why I always looked at her with such a sad expression. Embarrassed, I pretended to laugh off her question by saying I was a student of Kafka and Woody Allen; but that afternoon a quick look in the mirror confirmed what she had said. My lips were barely turned up and there was no crinkle formed under my eyes—and it’s that crinkle which brings warmth to a smile. My “reserved interest smile” gave me an unmistakable look of gloom! No wonder all those people had ignored me! They had thought I wasn’t interested in them, so naturally they went on their way. And I had concluded that they weren’t interested in me, so I began to do the same.

  Once I understood the situation, I began practicing smiles in the mirror and then trying them out. The response I got improved dramatically. When I returned to America, I even made it a point to walk around UCLA smiling at everyone—and it worked! Over half the students smiled back. I felt like a man who had been starving at a banquet. All that warmth—it had been there all the time, but it had taken a real smile to bring it out!

  TO EXPRESS LIKING: SOFTEN

  An excellent way to remember what to do when you want to signal others that you are relaxed, comfortable, and interested in meeting them or in becoming better friends has been suggested by Arthur Wassmer in his fine book Making Contact. He proposes that you use the word SOFTEN to stand for each of the following key nonverbal signals:

  Smile

  Open posture

  Forward lean

  Touch

  Eye contact

  Nod

  If you have hitherto been generally unexpressive, the SOFTEN behaviors may seem much too forward to you.

  Julie, whose story began this chapter, practiced SOFTENing in a conversational role play with another woman in her group. Although her actions at first seemed awkward, within about ten minutes she began to have a fair command of the different skills involved. When the exercise ended, she sank back in her seat, declaring, “That was fun, but if I ever acted that way in my real life, other people would think I was overpowering.” The rest of the group was unanimous in disagreeing. They told her that they hadn’t experienced her as an aggressive woman, but rather as an assertive one who was rather good at expressing her enjoyment of the situation and of the other person.

  One final point: In addition to helping you to express your interest in and liking for others, the SOFTEN behaviors have an additional benefit: When you express an emotion outwardly, you will tend to experience it inwardly. The psychological principle explaining this is called cognitive dissonance, but all that’s important for you to know is that if you smile, you may well start feeling happier; if you put your body into an open position, you may well start feeling more open to communication; if you lean forward, you may well become more involved in the interchange; and so forth.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Reducing Anxiety in Social Situations

  You and I and everyone else are a bit like turtles: we only make progress when we stick our necks out a little. Consider the risk that Timmy takes in this scene from The Subject Was Roses as he attempts to express his love for his father:

  TIMMY: . . . There was a dream I used to have about you and I . . . It was always the same . . . I’d be told that you were dead and I’d run crying into the street . . . Someone would stop me and ask why I was crying and I’d say, “My father’s dead and he never said he loved me.”

  JOHN: (Trying unsuccessfully to shut out Timmy’s words.) I only tried to make you stay for her sake.

  TIMMY: It’s true you’ve never said you love me. But it’s also true that I’ve never said those words to you.

  JOHN: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  TIMMY: I say them now—

  JOHN: —I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  TIMMY: I love you, Pop. (He crosses to center. John’s eyes squeeze shut, his entirie body stiffens as he fights to repress what he feels.) I love you. (For another moment John continues his losing battle, then overwhelmed, turns, extends his arms. Timmy goes to him. Both in tears, they embrace. . . . )9

  Chances are good that you would take more risks—and so would succeed more often—if you weren’t held back by anxiety. In what types of situations does anxiety get in your way?

  When you’re about to start a conversation with someone you don’t know?

  While you’re issuing an invitation?

  When you’re asking for a favor?

  When someone criticizes you?

  When you want to express love or concern?

  If you become tense whenever you’re in situations like these, you have probably concluded that the events themselves cause your reaction:

  That, however, really isn’t the case at all. Events don’t cause emotional reactions. Compare the responses of these two young men to the same event, starting a conversation with a stranger:

  A big, ugly brute named Big Al used to hang out at the beach at Coney Island. Day after day, I’d see him calmly walk up to young women and say in his husky voice, “Hi. My name’s Big Al. I noticed you were sitting alone. I’m alone too. Gee . . . ah . . . it’s such a nice sunny day that it’s a shame to be alone. I wonder if you’d mind if I joined you?” Now, this being New York, the woman would probably look away or go on reading. Big Al didn’t care. He’d lay his towel down next to hers and go right on, talking about the surf, the crowd, or whatever else occurred to him. If she kept on ignoring him, after a while Big Al would just say, “OK. No problem.” Then he would get up and walk over to another young lady he wanted to meet—maybe three or four towels away. “Hi!” he’d say. “My name’s Big Al. I noticed you were sitting alone. I’m alone too. . . .”10

  Grant, a graduate student at UCLA, had a crush on a coed named Dana and had known—or at least watched—her for four years. Day after day he would stand in the background as she walked to her classes, studied in the library, and ate lunch. Those few times he did try to meet her, he became so agitated that he backed away. “What if she were to laugh at me and tell me to go away?” he told me. “I don’t think I could stand it. . . .” One day Dana graduated and left Los Angeles. Now, all Grant has to remember her by is a picture that he secretly shot and had blown up to life size. If he’d taken his chances, he might have had the real thing.11

  If situations are responsible for people’s emotions, why didn’t starting a conversation with a stranger make both Big Al and Grant feel greatly anxious? Or why didn’t it make them both feel calm?

  The answer is that events don’t make people respond emotionally. It’s the beliefs they hold about those events that are responsible. Only when we add this factor to our
chart can we account for the differing emotional reactions of different people to the same event.

  The role that beliefs play in causing emotional reactions was further illustrated for me when I got to know Grant and found out that he wasn’t in the least bit anxious when starting conversations with men or with women he wasn’t attracted to. It was only around Dana and other women whose rejection he believed was likely and would be terrible that he became immobilized by tension.

  Events don’t determine your emotional reactions—your beliefs about those events do. This has always been true for all your experiences, including those unrelated to your social life. For example, if you were rejected and believed you were doomed to be alone and lonely the rest of your life, you felt sad; if you were rejected and believed you were lucky to be rid of a burdensome friendship, you might well have felt delighted. If you ever got a C in school and believed you deserved a B, you felt disappointed; if you got a C and believed you were lucky to have passed at all, you were happy. If your rent was raised and you believed the increase was unjust, you became upset; if it was raised and you believed it might have been raised still more, you were relieved. The same events caused different reactions, depending upon your beliefs.

  An ancient Greek philosopher named Epictetus once summed it up when he observed that, “Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the views they take of them.” Shakespeare expressed the view that, “Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

  Building upon that theory, Dr. Albert Ellis, founder of the Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET) school of psychology, and Dr. Aaron Beck, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, have isolated the beliefs people hold which bring about severe anxiety (as well as guilt, depression, and other debilitating emotions). For our purposes, we will group these beliefs into four categories: copping out, catastrophizing, overgeneralizing, and demanding. Ellis and Beck have applied the scientific method of looking for real-world evidence to back up these beliefs and have shown that each is irrational, illogical, unprovable. Dozens of studies conducted by Drs. Ellis, Beck, and other behavioral scientists, as well as the experience of the over 20,000 psychotherapists who practice RET, have demonstrated that people who challenge their irrational beliefs and substitute rational ones for them are able to dramatically reduce their anxiety. And with their anxiety curbed, they become free to do the things they really want to do.