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To improve your conversational skills, it is important to understand the difference between closed-ended questions and open-ended questions.

Closed-ended Questions

A closed-ended question is one that can be answered with a very short, very specific reply. 

Here are some examples of closed-ended questions:

·Have you been here before?
·Do you come here often?
·What time is it?
·What's your name?
·Do you live in this city?
·What's your sign?
·What time does the bus get here?

Notice how all of these questions can be answered very briefly, often with just a single word.

If you are trying to generate a conversation with another person, the use of too many closed-ended questions will doom your attempt very quickly. When you ask a closed-ended question, the other person is not obligated to be very thoughtful in his reply.  A one word answer is generally sufficient.  The other person does not need to interact with you, and he will not get much of a chance to provide you with the sorts of interesting information that might keep the conversation moving. He may not even realize you want to have a conversation with him if all your questions are of the closed-ended type.
 
To keep a conversation going, especially with a complete stranger, you both need to build on various points of interest you discover about each other as you exchange bits of information.

If your conversation consists mostly of closed-ended questions, you are spending a lot of mental energy trying to think up the next question, only to get a one word answer in return.  You won’t learn anything really valuable about the other person, and he won’t learn very much about you. You won't learn what you have in common or what is different about the two of you. You won’t get very much raw material that can be used to generate a satisfying talk.

The good news is that there is another kind of question you can use that has almost magical powers.  This kind of question used judiciously can keep a conversation going indefinitely.

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Do you usually take the initiative to introduce yourself to new people and to get the conversational ball rolling?  Or do you let other people make all the first moves?  If you have been holding back, waiting for other people to do all the work in the relationship, you are shirking your responsibility in making the relationship move forward.

Even if it seems somewhat difficult and awkward for you in the beginning, develop the habit of introducing yourself to others as soon as you meet them, or very early in the conversation.  Sometimes it is easier to ask the other person for their name first, and then offer your own.  If you practice the new behavior enough times, it will eventually become second nature to you.  With enough practice, it will no longer seem intimidating to take a more active role.

The Name Game

Barry was walking down the street when he ran into Jack, an old acquaintance he had met a dozen times before in his life.  Jack said hello to Barry, shook his hand and asked him how he was doing.  Then Jack said, “I know we’ve met a few times before, but I can never remember what your name is.” How do you think Barry felt? Although he was glad that Jack had taken the trouble to talk to him, he did wonder why Jack had never learned his name. “I guess he doesn’t think I’m important. If he did, he would care to remember my name.  But it looks like he doesn’t want to bother.”

Later that same day, Barry ran into Nancy, a woman he vaguely remembered meeting a very long time ago.  At the time they first met they had barely spoken with each other, and Barry hadn’t seen her since. Barry didn’t even know if Nancy would still recognize him after all these years. However, as soon as Nancy spotted Barry, her face lit up, and she exclaimed, “Why Barry! It’s wonderful to see you again!  How have you been?”

This time, Barry felt much more positive about his encounter with a long lost acquaintance.  Barry thought to himself, “ If Nancy remembers my name I must have made an impression on her.  She’s such a nice and thoughtful person.”

Making the effort to remember and use another person’s name is one of the most thoughtful gestures we can do for them.  People will appreciate it if you learn their name, and they will be disappointed if you don’t. 

“But I’m terrible with names,” you may say.  It is true that some of us have more difficulty than others at this useful skill. As we grow older and move into our fifth and sixth decades of life, the ability to learn and remember names often becomes harder for many of us.

There are steps you can take that will help you remember names better. The first step in remembering a person’s name is to make a deliberate decision to remember it. When you hear the name, be totally focused and present while it is being said. Pay attention to the moment. Look at the person, look at his face.  If you are shaking hands, pay attention to the handshake, the person, and the name all at the same time.

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Have you been guilty of belittling or making fun of others?  Has someone ever told you that you hurt them by your comments or your behavior?  Did you take the criticism to heart and change the undesired behavior?  Or did you justify your own actions by telling the other person he or she was overreacting?

Another key ingredient in building trust is honesty. Perhaps nothing will damage a relationship more than finding out that another person has been lying to us. In fact, finding out that a person has been lying about an important matter can end a relationship instantly and permanently.

If you are committed to honesty, this does not mean you should be brutally honest or tactless. You can hurt other people very deeply by inconsiderate remarks.  Always be sensitive to the other person while you try to find the best way to be honest with them. Honesty without compassion can be very destructive. You may pride yourself on your bluntness, but other people may see this quality as insensitive.

To develop a reputation for trustworthiness, always keep your word.  Don’t make promises unless you can keep them. If you can’t keep the promise, don’t make the promise! Many people, with the best of intentions, make a lot of promises they never keep.  Perhaps in the heat of the moment, they are willing to promise anything in order to gain another person’s approval, but later when they don’t keep their word, they create problems for everyone around them.  They diminish their own reputation for integrity.  Even such an apparently small thing as being on time for your appointments will affect your reputation for being trustworthy.

We also destroy trust when we repeat secrets that were told to us in strictest confidence. We may try to get around our promise of secrecy by making sure we tell people, “Don’t repeat this to anyone” while we spread the story. If we tell our friend’s secret after we promised that we wouldn’t, how do we know we can trust all the other people to whom we have told it?  The stories we spread may be circulated far and wide.  Sometimes they get back to the original source, and may be greatly distorted by the time three or four people have taken turns repeating them.

To maintain trust, it is very important that you do not gratuitously hurt the other person.  If you have done so, apologize and refrain from the hurtful behavior in the future.

When It Seems That People Don’t Like You

If it seems that you have been trying hard to make friends but other people still don’t want to be friends with you, you will have to do some careful investigating to discover what is really going on. 

First, you must ask yourself:  Do you have any real evidence that others don’t like you? Or are you just imagining the worst?  Remember that people who have low self-esteem, or who are suffering from depression, are often convinced that others don’t like them, even when there is no evidence for their negative belief. These people may in fact be surrounded by others who like them, care about them, and enjoy their company; yet because they don’t like themselves, they are convinced that no one else likes them either.

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How Socially Confident People Handle Rejection

How does a person with healthy self-esteem deal with rejection?  They might think to themselves, “Gee, it’s too bad my invitation wasn’t accepted.  Oh well.  Maybe it was bad timing”  Or they might decide, “Maybe that guy is just a jerk I’d never like anyway.  I think I’ll call up Roger instead and ask him to go to the game with me”.

When socially confident people make a friendly overture, they assume they will probably be successful.  They are very focused on the positive end result they want – more friends, more options, a more vital life.  A person with healthy self-esteem realizes that taking occasional social and emotional risks is a necessary part of developing relationships.   If someone turns them down, they don’t take it personally.  They just move on and look for someone else who will be more receptive. It doesn’t occur to a socially confident person to think that the reason they were rejected is because they are deeply flawed or inadequate. 

In fact, socially successful people tend to take all the credit for their social successes for themselves, and when they do encounter a social fiasco, they usually assign the blame to the other person! This is the opposite of how shy and lonely people often react.  Shy and lonely people tend to grab all the blame for themselves if their social overture is rejected, and if their overture is accepted they may believe the other person made a mistake in accepting them!

How To Never Be Rejected Again!

If you absolutely hate the thought of rejection by other people, here is a foolproof method that will guarantee that you will never be rejected again.

Are you curious? Here it is:  The way you can be totally rejection-proof is if you give up absolutely all interactions with other human beings for the rest of your life!

Is that something you are really willing to do?  There are occasionally extreme cases of people who adopt this option. For the great majority of us however, giving up all social connection is too high a price to pay to avoid the occasional pain that sometimes accompanies human interactions.
When we give up interacting with others, not only do we give up some occasional pain and discomfort, but we also miss out on all the potential warmth, comfort, fun and excitement that other human beings can offer us. Remember, if you never put yourself in a situation where someone can say “no” to you, you will also never be in a situation where someone can say “yes” to you.

Reducing Rejection Dejection

Let’s assume that the option of never again interacting with other human beings is not something you want to pursue.  If you have decided to continue interacting with other human beings and try to make some of them your friends, you must be prepared to accept this fact: occasionally some people will reject you. As terrifying as this may seem, you can take steps to diminish the likelihood that rejection will occur, and you can actually learn to make rejection a less painful experience for you.

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