Imagine having dinner with a stranger. In addition to the food menu, you have a conversation menu with stimulating, thought-provoking topics to discuss with each course — a conversation dinner.
The idea of the Conversation Dinner comes from the work of the historian, philosopher, and conversationalist Theodore Zeldin, founder of The Oxford Muse.
The Process
I have participated in two of Theodore’s conversational dinners and enjoyed both. I was paired with partners who were open about their lives, which made for some fascinating conversation. I got to know them well.
However, on both occasions, I attended the dinners with a friend, and each had a less satisfactory experience.
My friend was an elderly male professor matched with a young male student in the first case. I recall my friend telling me afterward that he had not enjoyed the evening as he and his partner had nothing in common and had a rather dull conversation.
At the second dinner, my friend was a young woman matched with another young woman. My friend is an open, engaging conversationalist whom I would have thought could have a great conversation with anyone, but it seems her partner, in this case, was closed and withdrawn, and the dialogue stilted.
So to some extent, the value and the enjoyment of a conversation dinner is a function of the personalities of the two people matched. If you are lucky, it can be a marvelous experience; not so fortunate, and it can be much less so. Though I often feel that you can learn much from a poor experience than from a good one if you choose to.
Based on these two experiences, when I run my intimate conversation Cafés – similar to Theodore’s events but without the dinner, I break the session into two and allow the participants to change partners halfway through the evening, thus increasing the change of at least one quality conversation.
A Conversation Dinner or Conversation Meal seats two strangers together who have never met or know each other only a little for an interesting conversation that goes beyond small talk.
A Conversation Menu is given to each diner. The menu looks like a restaurant menu, with starters, fish, grills, dessert, etc., but each heading contains topics to talk about instead of descriptions of food dishes.
The host then introduces the meal and explains how to proceed and the rules.
Each person chooses a topic, and when you have finished discussing it, the other picks an item, and so you go through the Menu.
The conversation typically takes about two hours, but it can last much longer.
The questions
The questions on the conversational menu are powerful – designed to stimulate big talk, not small talk.
Typical questions might be:
- How have your priorities changed over the years?
- What do you think about your spending habits, and what do you need that money cannot buy?
- What would you like to be engraved on your tombstone?
Theodore’s conversation dinners are pretty revolutionary. If you ever get the opportunity to participate in one – take it.
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Resources
- Webpage: Theodore Zeldin’s Conversation Dinners
- Blog Post: How Conversation Dinners revolutionize the ways we communicate
- Guardian: Two hours with a stranger: can these questions open up a city?
Posts that link to this post
- Intimate Conversations Conversations with strangers
- Talk with Strangers Why and how should you talk with strangers?
- Make Big Talk Make big talk not small talk
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Tags: big talk (11) | conversation dinner (3) | intimate conversation (2) | small talk (9) | talk with strangers (13) | Theodore Zeldin (19) | Vienna coffeehouses (3)
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