I don’t have anything. If I’m with friends, I won’t shut up, and it becomes natural and not something that feels like I need to concentrate and hold on to, whether I enjoy it or not.
With strangers, I don’t engage in conversations if I don’t have to, and keep it minimal, usually with every response I say having that terminal point to it. I don’t do it on purpose though, I’ve tried to carve out my socializing skills, but it never works, and I always find myself avoiding it, almost seemingly against my will.
Sometimes I can do it though. Have lengthy and fun conversations with unknown people, but this is usually in spontaneous conversations where everyone gets interested in the subjects being discussed, instead of the forced ’‘hey man, the weather’’ or the whole ’‘bar scene’’ thing. Again, it just happens, exactly like when I shut myself out of conversations; it’s like I have no control. It feels really awesome though, getting into big interesting talks with people when it’s totally unexpected. Guess I miss the element of balance to actually even answer this.
Yeah, banter. I have no skill, unless you count my god like ways to dismiss someone asking me if the bus went by yet. Would I be waiting here if it did? Jesus. XD With that said, that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to strengthen social bonds with people I know and care about.
But now it has come to dawn on me that I don’t know if you’re talking bout strangers, or people we know. But as I say, with people I know, it’s easy and I don’t have to think about it. Whether we start by saying silly shit, asking something serious, making funny noises…the whole social foreplay thing doesn’t seem to be registered.