12/08/2025
CONVERSATION 101
I am bad at conversation. This is an irrefutable fact, a universal truth and something I know with certainty.
You might think, "What's so hard about conversations? You just talk to people?" Well, it's not that easy. I'm sure there are a lot of people who have experienced the following:
The deafening silence descends upon the room as soon as something comes out of your mouth. The long periods of quietude between words occur because you feel you have nothing worthwhile to say. While you're panicking and thinking about what to say next, the conversation has taken its last breath and is already resting in peace with all its predecessors ( your previous attempts at conversing ). You're too busy overthinking to realize that the other person has already moved on with their day after witnessing your absolute failure. Which makes you wish you had that memory erasing device they had in Men in black, so you could reset everyone around your vicinity on a random Tuesday. Pretty common stuff, right? Right.
I have this tried and trusted method: when in doubt, talk about the weather. But there isn't a lot you can say about Faisalabad weather, aside from it being scorching hot. Well, this isn't going to cut it anymore. I have decided to actively try to be a good conversationalist. I'm not making all this effort because I want to command the attention of any room I walk in, nor do I want to be a public speaker. I just want to hold my own in a conversation. I want to be able to say witty and meaningful stuff with other people. Not just in my head.
My first step in becoming a phenomenal conversationalist is to research. I go straight to YouTube. But my neurons are fried because of my Instagram reel attention span and watching everything exclusively on 2X speed. So watching long videos is out of the question. I go to ChatGPT. It gives me a bulleted list on how to go about my dilemma. It includes things like being attentive, asking open-ended questions, not interrupting, listening more than you speak, etc.
With ChatGPT's list as my ammunition, I set about my journey and decided I'm going to try these conversing manoeuvres on my friends ( yes, I do have a few of those). If I told you that in the span of a week, I tremendously improved my communication skills and mastered the art of small talk, that would be a lie. But I did improve. The internet's advice did not magically transform me into a remarkable speaker. Nor did it miraculously make all my conundrums vanish. But it did arouse the suspicion of my friends about why I was talking so much. I came clean about my mission impossible and how I was on a journey of personal growth. They encouraged me but also pointed out that I was already good at conversation. I was flabbergasted. What? I'm good at conversation? I confirmed my eloquence a further three times and asked my friends to elaborate why they thought I was good at conversations. Their answer was simple: I just was. I already checked all the points in ChatGPT's list of great conversationalists.
So, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, I being bad at conversation was indeed an irrefutable fact, a universal truth and something I knew with certainty. All these truths were of my own making. In my head. I was the only one who had assumed I was bad at conversing. I had come to terms with it and accepted it as my personality flaw. When in reality, I was already good at it. So, the point of all this discourse is to say: put yourself out there, be confident in your abilities, you've made it this far, surely you can see this through. And the biggest suggestion I would give to others, but mostly to myself, is to stop overthinking. I know it's easier said than done and it's something I've struggled with my whole life. But trust me life gets a lot better when you get out of your head and start enjoying it in real time.
ZOPHIM ZULFIQAR
MBBS'27
