The art of conversation

I was bemused to read yesterday that we were such good conversationalists. It comes with a lot of other, to my mind, odd comments. A friend suddenly came out with the fact we were such easy people to talk to, the conversation just kept flowing effortlessly.

Is the art of good conversation such a lost art these days, that our endeavours are so worthy of comment? Surely, especially with friends, conversation inevitably comes easy. Perhaps not.

Thinking about it, I suppose so many people spend their days working, their evening watching the TV. So many couples seem to spend their lives pursuing their private passions rather than sharing them between each other. So often one person has to stay at home with the kids while the other goes out on their own.

We've avoided all of this. Especially now we've discovered wine. Dinner always takes an hour to eat as we talk about this & that. Often in the evening we switch off the box, put on some music, open a bottle and just talk.

Good conversational skills are like any other skill. They need practice. It helps if you have a wide range of interests. It also helps if you listen to the other party/parties. Only then can you raise the comment, the question, that keeps the flow going.

We shall continue practicing. It's fun.

And to think, just before we got married, I had a sudden panic. I would have to talk to this person, the Fox, every day for the rest of my life. Supposing we ran out of things to say. Thirty six years on, we're still finding an endless amount of things to talk about. Topics seem infinite, wide & varied, some practical, some dreams, some fancies, some will-of-the-wisp ideas, but all worthy of a talk.