Looking for Deep Conversation? Set Up the Best Conditions for It

As an introvert, you can’t really have a deep conversation with someone unless you engineer the best conditions for it to unfold.

Most nights after dinner, my lovely wife Adrianne and I take a two- or sometimes three-mile walk to stretch our legs.

And talk.

Our way.

She’s an introvert. I’m an introvert. So on these rejuvenating outings, as we stroll around the nearby ponds watching the geese as well as the occasional crane on the water’s edge, we have the kind of conversation introverts crave.

Deep conversation.

Substantive discussion about, for example, what Adrianne is doing and learning in her work, or what I’m doing and learning in mine. Or about our kids and their lives. Or about some pressing issue in the world around us, whether close to home or seemingly far away.

These types of conversations don’t spring forth with just anyone in any old situation, of course.

It’s one reason why introverts often get pegged as anti-social (or worse).

Introverts know that deep conversation—our kind of socializing—and, for example, being in a crowded bar cannot and do not go together.

Extroverts (may) call this attitude anti-social.

But introverts refer to it as yielding to a simple reality: that a real conversation just can’t take place when, and where, screaming to be heard is involved.

No, deep conversations—the ones you, too, likely seek out if you’re an introvert—require that a certain set of conditions be met.

The Right Person

If you want to have a deep conversation with someone, that someone has to be both willing and able to go deep in the first place.

Not everyone is, as I’m sure you already know.

Indeed, some people seem put off by the whole idea.

If you’re anything like me, you have perhaps a dozen people in your life who fit the bill for deep conversation.

Many of them (though certainly not all of them) are likely fellow introverts.

These are the people you need to turn to when you’re in the mood for a deep interaction with someone.

Perhaps it’s your spouse or significant other. Maybe it’s your best friend from college. Maybe it’s a grandparent.

Pick the right person for the job.

The Right Setting

That crowded, noisy bar I mentioned earlier—why is that such a bad setting for deep conversation?

Let’s cover the obvious first: It’s crowded and noisy!

It’s also likely to be overstimulating in terms of your senses, which will make it hard for you to think, let alone speak and be spoken to.

What you need for deep conversation is a place that is calm, quiet, and relatively sparse in terms of people in your immediate vicinity.

Every year in early November, Adrianne’s extended family has an event called “Lefse Weekend,” which involves the making of several tons (I’m exaggerating … a bit) of lefse (Norwegian flatbread) over the course of an entire Saturday morning and afternoon.

I typically don’t—and can’t—talk much to anyone during the event itself; there’s simply too much going on.

But in the evening—in that very same setting but under much more low-key conditions—I often have great talks, with my mother-in-law as well as others.

The Right Atmosphere

Even if you’re in the calmest, quietest room and there are few if any other people around, you can still find yourself battling the atmosphere when it comes to connecting deeply with your conversation partner.

The prime enemy: the phone—yours and the other person’s.

You can try to have a deep conversation with someone if one or both of you are constantly checking your phones. You can even believe you’re successfully having a deep conversation with someone if one or both of you are constantly checking your phones.

But you are not really having a deep conversation with someone when one or both of you are constantly checking your phones.

Because conversation requires focus and attention.

And deep conversation requires unbroken focus and attention.

So … put your phone on silent, and ask your companion to do the same.

Then put your phone away and out of sight, and ask your companion to do the same.

The atmosphere you create in doing so will let the two of you breathe.

And you’ll (finally) be able to get lost in the kind of enlightening, invigorating, memorable conversation you live for as an introvert.