Tips for Dinner Conversation with Awkward People
life is hard; food doesn't have to be #88 [vol3, 4.2]
With Easter this weekend, there’s a strong likelihood that we find ourselves sitting at a table with a relative we haven’t seen for a while. Or more honestly, they’re a bit awkward. Or am I that person?
When talking to a person for the first time (or millionth) and the conversation isn’t naturally escalating, I try to ask open ended questions that can’t be answered with one word. Here are two categories that help me.
Relationships and Schedules
Everyone has these two in varying capacities.
It’s a matter of mining for gold within the categories. Try to ask follow up questions, especially when the speaker lights up about a topic.
Sometimes my mind freezes (for so many reasons!) and having the categories relationships and schedules enables intelligible conversation with strangers.
Overall, the key is to listen. I often pray and ask the Lord to help me be transcendently curious - a phrase I learned from the late Larry Crab.
Being transcendently curious is looking for deeper meaning. Asking, “Why is this topic so interesting to the speaker? How can I ask a follow up question that is genuinely curious? What is the Lord teaching in this situation?”
Relationship Questions
It doesn’t have to be these questions, these are simple examples.
Tell me about your … parents, husband, girlfriend, best friend, etc.
How would you describe your siblings?
What’s the environment like at work? What kind of relationship do you have with your boss? Do they micromanage? Are you a manager? What does that look like?
Tell me about your pets. Animal people love to talk about their babies!
School (elementary or college): What’s a subject/teacher you enjoy? What makes it enjoyable?
Schedule Questions
What do you like to do on Saturday mornings? evenings? Sundays?
What are you looking forward to …this week, this month, this fall, etc.
What’s the best day of the week for you? Least favorite? Why?
What are you summer plans?
If you found yourself with free time, how would you spend it? Sometimes helps to add a time constraint to make the opened ended question a bit less open. For example, “What would you do with 2 hours of kid-free time?” or “If you had a Saturday morning with no responsibilities, how would you spend it?”
Younger kids: Tell me about your birthday party. Kids love to talk about parties whether it’s the one coming up or the one they just had.
What do you do after school?
Questions I Try to Avoid
I’ve done it so many times and am consciously trying to get better at avoiding favorites. What was your favorite gift? What was your favorite thing on vacation? The word favorite paralyzes some people, especially children. We want to get the answer right, even if it is only in my head!
Instead I am trying to ask, “What did you like about your vacation?” or “ Can you remember something you got for your birthday?”
Because really, when I ask about favorites, I don’t care if it is their favorite. I’m simply trying to push the conversation along. I’m only trying to get my dinner partner to share about their life.
When You Disagree or Don’t Understand
Inevitably sometimes I step on a landmine. A phrase that buys me time to think is tell me more. Instead of jumping to defensive or preacher mode to make my case, use the phrase tell me more to gain greater insight to the heart behind what is being said.
Keep the posture of a learner and ask questions.
Once in a dinner conversation with a mostly stranger, a guy was so LIVID with me he was shaking. He was passionate about global warming. He assumed that I didn’t care one iota about the earth. No matter the things that I told him I did to save the earth (compost, buy local foods and secondhand clothes when possible, collect rain water, hang clothes to dry…). We obviously were not seeing eye to eye.
I was praying, “Lord, help me continue to listen no matter where the conversation goes. Help me understand where the disconnect is.”
I wish I could tell you our conversation eventually resolved itself. It didn’t.
Even though the story doesn’t have a happy ending, I felt a small victory for staying engaged in a volatile conversation. Ringing in my ears was “continue to be transcendently curious.”
Share These Two Categories
Before new friends come to dinner, I try to get the creative juices flowing with my kids. I’ll tell them to think of one question to ask our guest during dinner. I might help them by telling them something of what I know about our guest. We might brainstorm possible questions. And this is a great time to remind them about the categories of relationships and schedules.
Moving
If you’re keeping up with my personal life - we loaded all our worldly belongings Sunday. My husband drove them Monday to a storage unit in Louisville until we get ownership of our house there in June. The kids and I are living with friends in Little Rock until the end of school.
Just as we thought we had finished loading, we sent friends home. John took one last sweep through the house and realized we’d forgotten our attic plunder. Worst. Feeling. Ever.
Everything is safe in Louisville now and we’re recovering.
May your table conversations make the food taste better this weekend!
Julie