it's easy to talk with strangers

 
Listening to a vibrant TED talk on "7 Ways to Make Conversation With A Stranger."  It's really good, lively & uplifting.  And it would have offered me absolutely nothing that I could use to help with my paralyzing challenge - how to carry on a decent conversation with people I already knew, who already knew me.  Often, people who've known me for at least 2/3 of my life. 

In those situations, I froze.  Or, worse, I found myself regressing to my teen-twentysomething self who presupposed I was a boring dunce, who usually deflected anything positive, who exuded my sunny self but baffled others with my cynicism.  Or to my late twenties-late thirties self, whose idea of a friendly discussion topic was dredging up family traumas - light years from what they expected.  If they weren't unsettled with how the conversation went, I was!  And feared never being able to do any better. 





Where are the TED talks on how to talk comfortably with people who experienced you at your worst?  That is a talk that would have millions of people surreptitiously watching it over & over to glean all the fine points.

It  was always easy for me to start a conversation with someone I'd never met.  Talking with a longtime acquaintance left me quaking & sure of messing up, so I'd tense up, send stressed-out body language. 

One of the super terrific things about getting older is being able to look back at my talking terrors with a sense of humor.  I was so busy comparing myself to others who seemed so much more conversation savvy that I created the very problem that obsessed me!  Measuring myself against an imagined ideal left me crippled, sure of my own deficiencies.

 
The young presenter advises approaching each stranger as if he or she is a new book waiting to be opened.  The same is true of opening up a conversation with someone you sort of know, who's known you since what feels like forever.  Treat the moment like you're opening up a book, one you started before but never finished.  What's waiting to be discovered, enjoyed, savored?  You'll only know by turning the pages. 

It's easy for me to talk to total strangers.  And it's finally easier for me to talk to longtime friends & pleasant acquaintances, making new discoveries, remembering forgotten memories, laughing out loud at quips & dismal puns.  As long as I keep turning those pages.