It bothers me so much that I quickly view myself as boring and uninteresting whenever I have an interaction with someone who is quiet and barely engaging with anything I'm saying or asking. I immediately assume it's my fault and I'm boring them.
Then, a bit later, I'm talking with someone who is so much more alive and engaged. The energy level is considerably higher and both sides genuinely care about the interaction. Both people are actively listening and asking questions that shows they're invested and paying attention. I come away from these conversations feeling energized, valued, and seen.
Having an engaging conversation is deceptively difficult. At first, it seems like it should be so straightforward and effortless. But, so many people are terrible at it.
I need to remember to not take conversation failures so personally. I have no control over how engaged the other person is. There is only so much I can do on my end to build and maintain conversational momentum. When the other person doesn't actively contribute, the energy dissipates. And that's ok.
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Hark Triton, hark! Bellow, bid our father the Sea King rise from the depths full foul in his fury! Black waves teeming with salt foam to smother this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs til' ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more - only when he, crowned in cockle shells with slitherin' tentacle tail and steaming beard take up his fell be-finned arm, his coral-tine trident screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet, bursting ye - a bulging bladder no more, but a blasted bloody film now and nothing for the harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed upon only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of the Dread Emperor himself - forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god or devil, forgotten even to the sea, for any stuff for part of Winslow, even any scantling of your soul is Winslow no more, but is now itself the sea!