>A good trick if you have trouble striking up conversation or finding what to talk about: FORD - Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams.
These are bad conversation topics if you don't have a similar background as most of the other people at the party. The point is to connect with people. Highlighting your differences is not the way to do this.
>These are bad conversation topics if you don't have a similar background as most of the other people at the party.
That's a fairly narrow way of looking at it, and having a differing background actually benefits, instead of hurts. If there are differences, there is more for you to talk about so you can both explore each other's perspectives. If you're not interested in their perspective, don't ask the question. However, I'll warn you that if you are not interested in their perspective, they likely will not want to talk to you - why should they?
I think you're viewing FORD as a hack to get the communication going. That's a self defeating mentality.
>The point is to connect with people. Highlighting your differences is not the way to do this.
I and many others read this as "I want to connect with people. But I really don't want to understand why someone is different from me." I don't know if that's what you meant, but that's the signal people will get from you.
FORD is heavy and personal. The point of small talk is that it's small and light. You have to make sure you trust a person before you start talking about personal stuff.
Small talk is about progressive disclosure. You make the conversation a little bit more personal and see if the other person reciprocates--but you have to start small, that's the whole point. If someone started out asking me about FORD I'd think they were odd/awkward or maybe snobby.
When I was in college, conversation tended to flow pretty smoothly from asking people about their majors and what sort of job they hoped to get after college.
(maybe the other party was bored by these conversations, idk, but they seemed to happen pretty smoothly)
One of the things I noticed as I got older, is that for any number of reasons, lots of people wind up spending 40 hours a week doing something other than what they hoped and dreamed they would be doing.
And they tend to not enjoy talking that much about it when they're off the clock.
People will tell you about what they do, but lots of people aren't interested in answering follow up questions, or making conversation about their job flow very smoothly; often the conversation gets stilted pretty quickly.
Yes. It depends on delivery, but it can come across very snobby when class differences may be involved. I've noticed when talking to 'upper class' people they often lead with asking about occupation, as if they're trying to guess how much money I make, or trying to figure out if I'm 'worth knowing' in their estimation. Reading too much into it? Maybe, but I'm sure some other people feel the same way if I do.
I make a point to never ask, unless it's a work scenario (conference/meetup). Besides, there's usually something more interesting to talk about.
Salary is irrelevant to it. We're talking about how it's uncomfortable and generally not advisable to say "well I own a canoe that's painted up for duck hunting" when everyone else it talking about their yachts. It's a class thing, not a money thing.
> generally not advisable to say "well I own a canoe that's painted up for duck hunting" when everyone else it talking about their yachts
Why? The goal of most social conversations is to find a common thread, and if your commonality with this mustache twirling yacht owning theoretical is that you have a little canoe you enjoy taking duck hunting, then you at least have the beginnings of your thread.
Wealth and it's presence or absence is not indicative of social or moral worth, nor is socializing about "besting" the other person with your knowledge of imported French brandy. You may well talk to the person for five minutes, get through the usual pleasantries, and find you have nothing at all in common and part ways - or you might both settle on talking about small game hunting.
like most social things, it depends heavily on context. if you're a software dev and you start talking shop with another dev, it's probably a safe topic of conversation, unless the person really doesn't want to talk about work after hours.
unfortunately there is a lot of baggage wrapped up in one's occupation (social status, money, etc.). if, as a software dev, you start asking someone who works at a pizza place all kinds of questions about their work, it could be a very different dynamic.
btw, i used to work in a pizza place and i had devised all kinds of strategies to optimize every aspect of my job. i loved when people would give me the opportunity to talk about it, but i know a lot of my coworkers were very unsatisfied with their job and place in the world, and would not be happy to be asked about it by someone who obviously made a lot more money.
Honestly, as a pretty private person, it’s nobody’s business what I do for a living. If they ask I just say “exotic dancer.” I get a laugh to break ice, and we can move on to a different topic cleanly.
Seriously. The answers "minimal contact, creative work, talking to animal people, being transformed into an animal person" only work at specific kinds of parties. Definitely not the ones full of people with healthy families, ordinary jobs, common hobbies, and normal dreams.
These are bad conversation topics if you don't have a similar background as most of the other people at the party. The point is to connect with people. Highlighting your differences is not the way to do this.