Make Better Small Talk By Aiming For Nice, Not Brilliant

Make Better Small Talk By Aiming For Nice, Not Brilliant

Not everyone is good at making small talk, and approaches like the five-stage outline can make things easier. Another key strategy? Aim for niceness rather than dazzle.

Psychology professor and shyness expert Bernardo J. Carducci suggest this approach will pay dividends:

People think you need to be really funny, witty; you just have to be nice. It sounds trite. You have to be willing to talk to others.

One of the ways to do that, Carducci suggests, is to find someone someone who’s alone, such as at a party or at school, and begin a conversation. It’s one of the proven ways to work a room.

Another thing to keep in mind is to not be late. It’s difficult to get into groups that have already formed, Carducci says. And then do the nice thing and bring other people into the conversation.

If you get there on time, you’re greeting people and pacing the conversation. You bring the new people into the conversation — “I’m so and so, and this is A, B and C., and we were just talking about…”

The full post has lots of other cool tips and tricks which you should check out.

Holiday tips for romance, small talk and more [Indiana University]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments