Alison Wood Brooks

What are my strengths and weaknesses?

I think these reflections can be very productive.

And one of the ways that they manifest in conversation is for very different habits and levels of comfort with silence and cadence and what you prefer.

It sounds like Nancy is being very kind here.

This is a very kind question of, well, when I interact with people who need more spaciousness, who need more pausing, how can we do that?

I think, as we said, strangers and new acquaintances, it's quite hard to accomplish this idea of companionable silence because any sort of lull in the conversation gives you that panicky feeling like you're failing

the task of getting to know each other and keeping the conversation alive.

But as a relationship grows longer and you know someone longer, then silence has become not only okay, but really great.

It gives you a place to sit and think and remember to raise topics that you should be raising with each other.

So just that hack, I think, can be quite comforting, is think about how long you've known someone.

If you've known them a long time, it's okay to be together and not talking.

That's right.

I think there's been a lot of, in sort of public discourse, there's been a lot of focus on ADD, ADHD, autism, and always a focus on personality differences like introversion and extroversion.

And it's helpful to know those things about yourself, but when it comes to conversation, it doesn't really matter where your behaviors come from, whether you're ADD, whether you're just an introvert.

If you find that social situations tend to be overwhelming or exhausting or you tend to jump topics too quickly, I think fostering that self-awareness about what your conversational strengths and weaknesses are

no matter where they come from, is a really good thing to do because you can lean into your strengths.

It sounds like Christina has lots of strengths and weaknesses, just like all of us.

It sounds like Christina is really creative and good at pulling together adjacent ideas and cutting to new topics quickly.

The downside of that is probably a lot of work to stay engaged on the same topic for a long time with someone, especially if her interest is waning.

And that is going to be exhausting.