What Is a Real Conversation? There is more to conversation than just talking or exchanging messages

Conversation is one of the most familiar human activities, yet we rarely stop to ask what it really is. Many different kinds of exchange are described as conversations, even when something important is missing. A real conversation is defined by qualities that make it uniquely human and deeply meaningful.

Several factors contribute to making a conversation real, true, genuine, or authentic.

Real conversations are in real-time

For a conversation to be authentic, it must be a real-time exchange. You must not be able to edit an utterance, delete it, or take it back. You must have little or no time to reflect on or plan what you will say before saying it. It must be real-time. It must be spontaneous, dynamic, and emergent—not planned or structured. You cannot have an asynchronous conversation.

Real conversations only occur between people

You can only have a conversation with other people. You cannot have a conversation with your dog or with a chatbot.

You cannot have a conversation with a book as if you were conversing with the author. Nor can you have a conversation with a work of art, such as a statue! Books and works of art can trigger a conversation of sorts within your head, but this curious phenomenon is still not quite a genuine conversation.

Our voice encodes who we are

Our voice reflects who we are. It is an important part of our identity. It carries information about our age, education, nationality, social background, and many other aspects of who we are.

In any conversation, our voice also conveys our mood, stress level, seriousness, curiosity, impatience, respect, boredom, irritation, confidence, uncertainty, sense of humour, and much more.

Much of this happens automatically. We rarely think about it. It is expressed through our accent, tone, pace, volume, pauses, rhythm, and countless other subtle cues.

We also adapt the way we speak depending on who we are talking to. Linguists call this code-switching. We may change our accent, vocabulary, tone, or style to suit different social settings. These changes are usually unconscious and are themselves part of how we express our identity and relate to others.

These signals are subtle, and we do not always interpret them accurately. Even so, they carry a richness that is difficult to put into words.

Much of this information is lost when we communicate in writing.

It is not that a text exchange cannot resemble a conversation, but many of the cues that help us understand one another have disappeared. Writing also makes it much easier to conceal aspects of who we are and how we are feeling.

Real conversations are eyeball-to-eyeball

You need to be in touching distance of another person to have a really good conversation.

Credit: David Gurteen

Email and text exchanges are not conversations. Telephone calls come close, and video calls, such as WhatsApp or FaceTime, come even closer, but they still fall short of real conversations.

And by the way, Albert Mehrabian never claimed the false assertion that 93% of our communication is nonverbal.

Real conversations are in small groups

How many people can simultaneously engage in a single conversation? Two is, of course, the minimum, but can 100? Can 20, 10, or 5? Research and common sense show that it’s a pretty small number. Anything more than five, and you don’t have a conversation—you have a series of statements made by each person. People talk at each other rather than with each other.

And with fewer people, everyone also gets to talk. This is another vital element of a good conversation— broadly equal speaking times among the participants.

Real conversation catches fire.

It involves more than sending and receiving information.

Credit: Theodore Zeldin

A good conversation is often fast-paced. As a result, there is little time to reflect or plan your response. This may seem like a negative aspect, but people are more likely to speak the truth openly when they are deeply engaged in a conversation. And even periods of silence do not mean that people have nothing to say, but that they are reflecting.

Real conversations are respectful

Even when the above criteria are met, does chit-chat, an argument, a slanging match, or a debate constitute a conversation? I don’t think it does.

Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception.

Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture?

Credit: David Bohm

Theodore Zeldin says, “The kind of conversation I like is one in which you are prepared to emerge a slightly different person.” He is talking about a learning conversation, about dialogue.

A learning conversation is one in which each person tries to make sense of an issue, actively working to understand the meaning the other person is trying to convey, and where each person is prepared to change their views.

They are listening not with the intention to reply but with the intent to understand and help the other participants articulate their thoughts.

There is nothing wrong with other forms of communication—they all have their place. However, many are still seen as forms of conversation in an ordinary sense.

Real conversations are human

At the heart of it all, real conversations are human. They embody our humanity by encompassing the sharing of emotions, a willingness to be vulnerable, and a receptiveness to constructive criticism.

Real Conversations are in good faith

A real conversation is always in good faith. If either person is lying, deceitful, or has a hidden agenda, the exchange is not in good faith and is not an authentic conversation.

Real Conversations are between people who have the capacity to converse

If the people engaged in a conversation lack the capacity to converse, there cannot be a real conversation. For example, if they cannot think critically or are not open to complex ideas and perspectives.

Real Conversations occur between equals

To have a conversation, you have to be comfortable being human – acknowledging you don’t have all the answers, being eager to learn from someone else and to build new ideas together.

You can only have a conversation if you’re not afraid of being wrong.

Otherwise, you’re not conversing, you’re just declaiming, speechifying, or reading what’s on the PowerPoints.

To converse, you have to be willing to be wrong in front of another person.

Conversations occur between equals.

The time your boss’s boss asked you at a meeting about your project’s deadline was not a conversation.

The time you sat with your boss for an hour in the Polynesian-themed bar while on a business trip and you really talked, got past the corporate bullshit, told each other the truth about the dangers ahead, and ended up talking about your kids – that maybe was a conversation.

Credit: David Weinberger

Real Conversations are often purposeless

Lastly, real conversations are mostly purposeless, other than their implicit enjoyment. A real conversation is not an argument or a debate, and it does not have a conclusion.

In a conversation the participants are not engaged in an inquiry or a debate; there is no 'truth' to be discovered, no proposition to be proved, no conclusion sought.

They are not concerned to inform, to persuade, or to refute one another, and therefore the cogency of their utterances does not depend upon their all speaking in the same idiom; they may differ without disagreeing.

Of course, a conversation may have passages of argument and a speaker is not forbidden to be demonstrative; but reasoning is neither sovereign nor alone, and the conversation itself does not compose an argument.

Credit: Michael Oakeshott

Resources

• Psychology Today: Do You Have Real Conversations?
• Newsweek: The Creative Power of Meeting Eyeball to Eyeball
• Blog post: There’s no such thing as online conversation by Chris Rodgers