I think we all have been there. It might have happened in person, on the phone or in a video call. Those awkward and unpleasant silences in conversations where you just want to fill the void with something. Unfortunately, sometimes we just don't have anything to talk about. Like really nothing. We have had those days where seems like we have the most boring life in the world. And then you get the one dreaded question: “What’s new?”, followed by a silence…... It feels stale and you would do anything to break loose from what feels like a never-ending rut. A few days like these aren’t that big of a deal, however, when you see these types of days accumulating to the point where they make up the majority of the times you call with each other you want to change things.
1. Prepare beforehand
One way to give it a little push is to write down something beforehand to make sure you have something to get the flow going. Some people simply have more difficulty holding a conversation, especially over the phone. Write down the things that you want to talk about in advance. You can make bullet points or anything to spark and gain some momentum for a prolonged conversation. An easy icebreaker, in the beginning, would be to tell how your day or week has been. What did you do? What did you eat? Did something extraordinary happen? Of course, sometimes life isn’t just that interesting and gives you nothing to discuss. Nevertheless, anything the other puts on the table invites further questions to be asked about it.
2. Ask questions
Through questioning, you can roll from one thing into another until you hit something that excites both of you genuinely. If nothing casually rolls along you could always try to ask some unorthodox questions to make it more interesting. Weird or unusual things are not usually something that comes up in conversation, so it is an excellent source for conversation topics as it is not only sporadically discussed, but it creates a little bit of that good tension because it takes people out of their comfort zone. After all, you want to get to know the other person as who they are, which includes any idiosyncrasies and weird interests. I have seen people bond over the most unusual things because they were out of the ordinary and they finally found someone that they could share that passion. However, if you feel like it is too soon to dive that deep, you could play it somewhat safer until you get to know each other better.
3. Do an activity instead
Now we talked about this in another post as well and it is applicable here too. If you know that you are not the greatest talker in the world, you can always choose to do an activity instead. You can watch a movie, play music, show the other around the neighbourhood, cook together, anything. It is about breaking that stalemate by doing something that is inviting for conversation outside of the usual circumstances. Doing something together is also great because you are actively working towards a common goal.
4. Reconsider how often you talk
If nothing seems to work, you might want to check how often you are talking with each other as well. If you are calling every day it is more likely you will have less to talk about than if you only call once a week. More things happen in 7 days than they do in 24 hours. This depends greatly on what you two are comfortable with, but it might be something to consider. Do you know how they say that you need to allow someone to miss you? I can tell from experience that I like my personal time, but I wanted to talk after a week of only writing texts over Whatsapp. By the time we would talk, we would be jumping to get a hold of each other because lots had happened in the meantime, whereas if we had spoken every day, our conversations would have been a lot calmer and perhaps silent. Again, this is a personal preference discussed between the two of you, but it might be helpful. This does not mean you have to ignore each other completely in between. Just allow everybody their space and room to do things where they are and you will have even more things to talk about.
In the end, awkward silences don’t need to be awkward per se, it is how you deal with them. We all experience them. It is not necessarily a bad sign, just try to get a grip on them and turn it around. Every relationship goes through its ups and downs and how you deal with it is the dependent factor.
With love,
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