How To Be Interesting: The Game

[Trifoilum]

Greetings!

From time to time, most people visiting INFJ forum (me included, are you?) often finding themselves bemoaning about conversational problems; not able to be interesting, not able to keep talking for a long time, and most importantly, small talk. (We have three, and it just so happens that my first thread in MBTI world is about small talks too.)

A friend told me this keyword and at the moment, it fits; 'just be interested'; but how?

This excerpt I am going to present here is a summary from How To Have A Beautiful Mind, by Edward de Bono. It's an interesting, detailed, and completely dissecting self guide towards EQ and its application.

How To Be Interesting -- Summary:

1. It is always important to get the truth, but being interesting is more important than winning an argument. You owe it to yourself and to others to be interesting.
2. Interest may arise from interesting things you have done, are doing, or know about. Interest can also arise from how you conduct a conversation.
3. Using the 'what if?' technique can open up new possibilities and new lines of thought.
4. Looking out for possibilities and alternatives enriches the conversation. There's usually more than one way of doing things or looking at things.
5. Speculations looks forward and opens up new areas of interest. Description only looks backward.
6. Finding and making connections link matters together and generates interest.
7. New ideas are rave and freshen any discussion. Seek to be creative and to generate new ideas. Learn and apply the formal techniques of lateral thinking*.
8. Provocation is a useful way to force new ideas. You put forward a statement you know to be wrong or impossible in order to provoke new thinking**
9. Use as a formal tool the phrase 'Now that is interesting'. Be ready to apply this to anything you hear.
10. Seek to explore and elaborate and to pull interest out of any matter.
11. Practice simple exercises to develop your ability to create interest.
12. When someone else opens up an interesting line of thought, go along with it and help to develop the interest further.

*)Lateral thinking is, I think, another method of his. :|
**) The example given here is, 'Po (the signal that it's a provocation), people should decide in advance, their own date of death' during a meeting discussing pension schemes.

I found this, especially number 9 very interesting, so I'm using you guys as my scapegoat--- so I'm sharing this in the forum (and making a game out of it)!
Let us practice together

 

[Trifoilum]

The rules!
From the same book:

You need to get into the habit of saying: 'Now that's interesting.'

Once you are ready to use that phrase you can now direct the phrase at anything that comes up in the conversation. So instead of just carrying on with the flow of the conversation you now pause at that point. You explore the point. You elaborate around the point. You open up possibilities and alternatives. You make connections.

You need to develop the habit of finding interest in almost anything. Developing this habit of mind needs practice. A very simple way of doing this is to take different things and then to seek to find interest in them. What would you say? How could you be interesting about each topic?

It's simple, really. I write a keyword, from Justin Bieber to Roman Empire armors to psychological aspects of martyrs to glasses to physics to chemistry to anything. The next poster writes what about that keyword does s/he find interesting, as well as another new keyword (same keyword could be used twice; the more interesting things you write about one thing, the better it will be for us)

It may be a sentence ("That's interesting. I've always wondered why armors made in Roman empire seems to be made in a shape of muscular abs). It may be a question ("I wonder what will Justin Bieber be when he reach 30? No, 23, even?"). It may be a 'what if'. ("What if martyrs were directed to psychologist, where they were brought into cognitive therapy? Will the martyrdom stop?"). Anything.

(I would say that those replying after those giving out questions may answer the question, somewhat. But it's up to the poster, I guess.)

The topics are endless, but if we're talking about learning to small talk, the best topics to choose is the mundane and daily. But OF COURSE, it can be anything.

 

[Trifoilum]

And with that, I end the opening post.
I hope things will go on well; if not, well, that's just adding to the list of threads I made. Nevermind.

For the first:

Economy! (that is, economy as a school/college subjects. Not economics state of the world)

 

[Gaze]

very interesting

 

[barbad0s]

Isn't it interesting how "economy" starts with an E? I mean, really! Wow!

(elaborate ^ )

 

[Kgal]

My first husband was majoring in Economics when we married. If they couldn't find a fact or data to make their equations worked - they assumed or made data up to fit their answers. As an engineer that used to drive me crazy.

Why are you interested in the college subject of Economics?

 

[Trifoilum]

Because it's a nice change compared to the ACTUAL economics we're talking about these days, what with the Occupy Everything and all.

Actual (micro?)economics, while indeed real, is entwined more with plenty of other things rather than the usual ones (politics, sociology, history, culture; blah.). It's entwined with how you have your iPads. It's how quickly you change your iPhones. How often you go to vacation. How often you refresh yourself. How sucky your workmates are. How conducive are the workplace.

Human factors are filling the world's economics.

It's a nice change, personally speaking. Even with the trouble and all, which, according to you, seems very very....
......plentiful. O_O Data manipulation; how surprising.
(Remember, those who don't feel able/like to reply can freely change the topic afterwards.)

 

[Kgal]

I didn't know Micro Economics was related to products statistics. How interesting!

How does being able to predict when I'll buy an iPhone relate to you? Are you in business dealing with phones?

 

[Feelings]

Fixed for you.

How To Be Interesting -- Summary:

1. Talk about WoW.

 

[Trifoilum]

I didn't know Micro Economics was related to products statistics. How interesting!

How does being able to predict when I'll buy an iPhone relate to you? Are you in business dealing with phones?

Not -officially-, of course. >_> I don't have the necessary backing for that. and 'you' here means you in general. And no, not phones.
But as far as my understanding goes; the time (both when and how fast / how soon) you buys your iPhone will affect their production speed and quality (so let's assume like, iPhone 4S, goes really low in sales; the production will be VERY different.) And of course, as a consumer, the price will also be affected.
Do you know the iPhone which tend to be 300-400$ can be like 600-800$ here? It's a very prestigious (and therefore somewhat douchey) phone. Blackberry is all the rage here.

And that is talking about objective measures (time) affecting you affecting me, which is another demographic group entirely.
What about 'you' / the same demographic group themselves?
What about subjective measures? Say, if one day, every Apple sell-- ahem, Official Merchant™ (sic?) decides to be douchey and demean every customer buying one model of iPhone? ("Black iPhones? How plebeian. The Microsoft store is over there. Sheep.") That goes into people's personal psychology; how well they are in dealing against insults? How will they react?
But I digress.

Fixed for you.

I'm actually wondering, how many people are hanging around in WoW-- especially those with max level? Or I'm mistaken -- and everyone there is at max lvl -- or making their second or third or fourth character?
I understand 'builds'; therefore I also wondered, how flexible is those builds in WoW?

I also wondered if the stereotype 'lonely bitter nerd playing WoW' is true and prevalent.
*wink*

 

[Kgal]

Not -officially-, of course. >_> I don't have the necessary backing for that. and 'you' here means you in general. And no, not phones.
But as far as my understanding goes; the time (both when and how fast / how soon) you buys your iPhone will affect their production speed and quality (so let's assume like, iPhone 4S, goes really low in sales; the production will be VERY different.) And of course, as a consumer, the price will also be affected.
Do you know the iPhone which tend to be 300-400$ can be like 600-800$ here? It's a very prestigious (and therefore somewhat douchey) phone. Blackberry is all the rage here.

And that is talking about objective measures (time) affecting you affecting me, which is another demographic group entirely.
What about 'you' / the same demographic group themselves?
What about subjective measures? Say, if one day, every Apple sell-- ahem, Official Merchant

 

[Trifoilum]

lol....you did digress off into what I'd think would be typical infj type conversation - which is very interesting from my perspective - but probably not what most would consider "small talk".

Let's go back to phones....

The iPhone is double the price there where you are as opposed to over here? How awful! That's totally too expensive just to look good(prestigious). [trying to not cough]. How on earth do you manage? [she asks with wide eye innocence] :w:

Well both has its places. as the creator I think it's alright to practice for both; it could do wonders. XD Worst comes to play, this will be a chatroom..and even that is a practice by itself no?
Or I'll ask a mod *stares* to move it into The Lounge or lock it if needed to.

How? By not buying it. *smirks*.
It's totally more expensive compared to the US. D: Maybe it's the US that has a discount like that, because of the contracts-- we often use attachable sim cards. (except iPhones. Except that darned iPhones.)

Alright; Next topic.

Burgers!

 

[Kgal]

I have noticed burgers are smaller than they used to be at JackInTheBox. [thinking but they still cost the same or more...grrr... those dirty bast'd greedy corporations].

 

[Trifoilum]

I have noticed burgers are smaller than they used to be at JackInTheBox. [thinking but they still cost the same or more...grrr... those dirty bast'd greedy corporations].

I don't know there's a burger chain called JackInTheBox. What's it like?
Ew. Which part; the meats? all of them? Size and price aside, they don't serve other / new, bigger, and more expensive kind of burgers in exchange of the now smaller burger?
Sigh, corporations, they always do that, don't they? D:

Now talking abour size, in my place almost every burger is small. The patty is thin and kind of tasteless...
Actually, they have a bit like 'degrees'. For instance, Burger King and Mos Burger is one of the top, alongside the newcomer Carls' Jr. McDs is amongst the bottom, what with the lackluster patty, bland taste, and..meh. Not worth the calories. They do have great ice creams.

 

[Kgal]

I don't know there's a burger chain called JackInTheBox. What's it like?
Ew. Which part; the meats? all of them? Size and price aside, they don't serve other / new, bigger, and more expensive kind of burgers in exchange of the now smaller burger?
Sigh, corporations, they always do that, don't they? D:

Now talking abour size, in my place almost every burger is small. The patty is thin and kind of tasteless...
Actually, they have a bit like 'degrees'. For instance, Burger King and Mos Burger is one of the top, alongside the newcomer Carls' Jr. McDs is amongst the bottom, what with the lackluster patty, bland taste, and..meh. Not worth the calories. They do have great ice creams.

JackInTheBox burgers are somewhere in between McDonalds and Burger King as for taste. And no they didn't introduce anything better - although they think so. meh...

Do you make your own burgers?