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« on: January 02, 2013, 08:01:23 PM »
Alright lets see here. You can read all the advice you want online but you will really only get better if you actually start conversing with people. Initially, you have to learn how to shut the forget up. If you don't know how to be quiet and listen to what other people have to say, then you will never be a good conversation partner. Now, there are two polarizing extremes of shutting the forget up: you can either never be quiet and hog the conversation time or you can barely say anything. Sometimes you have to actually take a conversation to one of these extremes if YOUR conversation partner is stuffty and you want/have to continue but usually you'll just come off as annoying. Generally, after you have timing and how long you talk down it's generally best to follow the "act interested, not interesting" policy when talking to someone new. If there is ever an awkward silence during a conversation, just ask the person more about themselves instead of the situation at hand. Remember: one of the favorite things that people like to talk about is themselves. Now, I don't have a problem with talking about irrelevant things but if the conversation drifts its alright. I mean, you can follow a stream of consciousness in which you keep building on the previous discussion topic idea by bringing up something somewhat related but you don't want to be the only one who changes the topic. Just play it by ear.
If you think that you're being boring and have nothing to talk about, then you probably will want to get interesting! (Great advice, right?) Anyway, it could help if you read the news, read some books, think about different things. Of course, the 'interesting information' that you may pick up from such practices may be boring to some people, it could be fascinating to others. The thing to remember is that everyone is different. This is a pretty cursory explanation of basic conversationalism, and a lot of it is self explanatory. I think the best advice that I can give is to get better via practice and actual conversations.
tl;dr: I forgeted a dog while high and then got stabbed by a drug dealer