In this article I present the first of three main rules that you should follow to improve conversations.

• The customer is always right! • Don’t be too emotionally invested! • Take the lead.

The first rule that the customer is always right! That means that the goal of the conversation is to make the other person happy, not to make yourself happy. You should talk about what the other person wants to talk about, not just what you want to talk about. Ideally, you would get the other person started on something they find interesting, and you just smile and nod. Most people in conversations are selfish and only talk what they themselves find interesting, making the experience unpleasurable for others. For example, how many times have you heard this conversation:

Person A: So where did you go for vacation?

Person B: Hawaii!

Person A: Oh you went to Hawaii? I went there with my aunt 4 years ago [talks about her vacation to Hawaii with her aunt]

Now let’s think about this logically – why the fuck would person B give a fuck about person A’s vacation to Hawaii? It has literally no relevance to person B’s life and person A is purely talking about it to make themselves happy. Of course, if person B is polite they will smile and nod and maybe ask person A some questions about their vacation to Hawaii, but in their head they will be uninterested, and will not want to have another conversation with person B.

Oftentimes when people have conversations they simply talk past each other, change the subject and don’t listen or give a fuck about what the other person is saying. In fact, I would say that most conversations are a compromise where the parties implicitly agree that “I will talk about what I want to talk about for a little while, and then you get to talk about what you want to talk about.” Most girls will say the biggest issue guys have on dates is that they go on and on about themselves (or other boring shit) and barely let her talk. A true social master asks questions of others, acts interested in what they are saying, and tries to get them to talk more. People love talking about themselves so if you can get somebody going about a topic they are passionate about, they will actually like you more, even if you’re not saying anything. I know it sounds condescending, but you would be amazed at how much you can get people to like you by just smiling and nodding.

An advanced social technique is conversation threading. Here’s how it works. I ask you a question about something going on in your life. You start talking and I listen. I pick upon a topic or something in your answer and ask you another question, or I make a comment I know you will agree with – that causes you to go on some more. Again, I listen carefully and catch another topic and I ask another question about that. I keep you talking, which makes you feel emotionally more connected to me. Of course, I don’t just ask questions. I also throw in stories of my own, or advice, or whatever else I can add. But the whole time I make sure it is something the other party is interested in. To succeed at threading, you need to learn to read people to see what parts of the conversation they are interested in and what they find boring or stupid.

Of course a difficult part of threading is getting the conversation going. When you first meet somebody they may be unwilling to open up to you. To get past this initial anxiety, you need you to take the lead and get them going somehow. Ask them a broad question like “how was your day” and then try to find something in that answer to go on. It may be difficult, and the goal is to not ask them questions about shit they don’t care about (“hey what did you eat for lunch today? Was it delicious?, etc...”). Sometimes a person just isn’t going to want to talk to you either, and that’s ok. These are all just techniques.

You may be thinking that sounds miserable. It must be a really unequal, fucked up relationship where one person can talk about whatever they want and other person just sits and listens. And you’re right. Ideally, you would only find yourself in relationships and friendships with people that share the same interests, values and thoughts as you, so you can both talk equally and share your thoughts and you will both be interested. But there are certain situations where one person is just not interested in a particular thing and they are just doing you a favor by listening to you talk about it. It’s fine to bore your wife or girlfriend that you have been dating for a while with some shit you need to get off your chest, but if you meet a stranger and you start boring them they will just stop talking to you. From a purely logical standpoint, people are not going to want to talk to you if you are boring or offending them.

The philosophy of “the customer is always right” extends to other things in addition to just not boring them. Don’t offend them. If somebody is a right-wing Christian and you think that’s stupid, keep it to yourself (if you want the conversation to go well). Also, don’t’ tell people how to live their lives. People hate that. If somebody tells me “I just dropped out of Harvard to join the circus” I think in my head “that’s stupid” but I’m not going to tell them that’s stupid because I’m sure they’ve thought about that decision a lot and nothing I could say could affect their decision. My philosophy is this: Don’t offer people advice unless they ask for it or you could provide some immediate help that they would want to hear.

Of course, the caveat to “the customer is always right” is that you can’t let people walk over you. If somebody insults you or says something incredibly stupid, call them out on it. One way that girls “test” guys is by saying incredibly stupid or offensive things and seeing how they react. Spineless guys just go along with it and agree but alpha males stand up for themselves. For example, let’s say you are on a date with a girl and she says “I lied on my resume to get my current job.” A wrong way to react is to say “you’re a bad person for lying on your resume. You should stop doing that.” Even if that’s technically true, you’re not going to convince her so you’re just going to piss her off. The right way to react is to say “well I think that’s unethical and I would never do that, but whatever suits you.” That may sound similar to “you’re a bad person” but there is a subtle distinction: in one statement you are attacking her and telling her how to live her life. In the other you are just talking about your own life. If she wants to argue about how YOU live YOUR life just say “I think we just disagree.” If there is nothing to be gained from a debate, don’t do it. Girls respect guys with boundaries who stand up for their own opinions, but they don’t like controlling or possessive guys.

Another bad reaction to a girl saying “I lied on my resume to get my current job” is to agree and say “that’s a great idea.” Here’s why: it is objectively wrong to lie on your resume and most people know that. So if you agree with her lying on her resume you look like a spineless “yes man” that has no boundaries and will just go along with anything she says to make her happy. That makes you look overly interested, pathetic, and weak. When I was in law school a really important law firm took a few of the law students to dinner as kind of an informal interview. During dinner one of the law students started talking about how much of an idiot Justice Antonin Scalia was. The partner from the law firm then said that he really liked Justice Scalia. The law student immediately started talking good about Justice Scalia. It was an immediate cringe because the law student was clearly talking good about Scalia to make the law firm partner happy. Don’t do that. And of course, if a person is severely offending you or being a really shitty person, just cut it off. If a girl is talking about how she is a Nazi and hates black people, you don’t need to kiss her ass. Just next her.