A Thesis: How to Have an Adult Conversation

Ah, college. A harrowing experience for many students around the globe. A place for maturity and growth, but will soon be found to prove far too stressful from the soul crushing weight of literally whatever you have going on. One thing that will be found among those diligently working to be a better version of themselves are difficult conversations. While it would be kind of epic to simply be the best person ever and never do anything wrong, you’ll eventually find that you’ve wronged someone whether you intended to or not. Here are some do’s and don’ts that you should keep in mind for when you have to inevitably have a difficult conversation.

DO:

• Make eye contact: don’t stare vacantly or ahead. Let the person that you’re talking to know that you’re actually paying attention. It’s also more difficult to not focus or disingenuously engage when you look away.

• Own up to how you made someone feel: invalidating someone else's feelings is pretty cringe. If you feel so inclined, provide your perspective without overruling how someone else felt. “Sorry I made you feel that way,” might be all someone needs to hear.

• Apologize for your part: without making it entirely your fault or the fault of the other party. Most likely its some kind of miscommunication issue, especially at this fucking school. 

• Let the other person speak: your side is important but so is who you’re talking to. Both of you are (should be?) human beings, so give them the basic respect they deserve. If you just need to get shit off of your chest, chances are so do they.

DON’T:

• Make general statements about how nice of a person you want to think you are and about your intent. Yeah, it should be a given that most people want to be good people but throwing this out as a “I would never want the worst for anyone and only want to promote positivity and peace” blanket statement doesn’t resolve the issue. It also doesn’t automatically make the person you’re talking to think “well shit, they wouldn’t WANT to do this to anyone so they must not have done anything to me.”

• Speak for others who may be involved in your conversation. You don’t know everything! In fact, speaking on behalf of others almost never goes well unless you are given something explicit to say. You may make someone feel worse about themselves and further complicate things.

• Interrupt.

• Ask “do you have anything else to say?” This makes who you’re talking to feel minimized and less inclined to want to continue to talk to you. Granted, this isn’t straight sin and can be asked in a constructive way.

Now that you’re prepared to have those difficult conversations, take the initiative to have those hard talks. Who knows? Maybe it’ll help with your developing insomnia and get you out of your own head. If you are able to have a difficult conversation and don’t feel like things are resolved, maybe take some time for yourself and think about things. Have a beer or something and spend time with the people who do care about you.