> Try having a five-minute conversation with a co-worker where you don't ask a single question and absolutely refuse to complain about anything. I reckon you will last about forty seconds before the silence becomes so suffocating that you panic and blurt out, "So... crazy weather we're having, right?"
You'd reckon wrong. Although my experience talking with people made me predict that this isn't the way it goes, I've experimented three times this morning alone and found no difficulty in doing this at all.
My experience is that while yes, a large percentage of conversations consist of questioning (which is a great thing!) and complaining, there still remains a large proportion of conversation that isn't either of those things. Other things that we tend to express in conversation is praise and appreciation, expressions of wonder, relating interesting things we've experienced, passing along things we've learned, etc.
To say that people only ever say two things to each other is easily disprovable simply by talking with a variety of people.
JohnFen•1h ago
You'd reckon wrong. Although my experience talking with people made me predict that this isn't the way it goes, I've experimented three times this morning alone and found no difficulty in doing this at all.
My experience is that while yes, a large percentage of conversations consist of questioning (which is a great thing!) and complaining, there still remains a large proportion of conversation that isn't either of those things. Other things that we tend to express in conversation is praise and appreciation, expressions of wonder, relating interesting things we've experienced, passing along things we've learned, etc.
To say that people only ever say two things to each other is easily disprovable simply by talking with a variety of people.