The Lost Art of Conversation

Just for laughs, I decided to run a test on mIRC. Yes, THAT archaic chat program.

Here's the test. I'll go in with a female nickname and let's see what happens to females on the net. The results are not exactly unexpected.

Total private messages in 5 min - 29

Hi and MAYBE an a/s/l - 18
Long, descriptive propsal of the sex acts he likes - 1
Hi, and the equivalent of "wanna fuck?" - 7
Asking for paid sex - 2
Something vaguely resembling the start of a conversation - 1

And immediately this begs the question. Have we forgotten how to talk to people we do not know yet?

I remember when I was a kid, I could go into a playground and even if I didn't talk to somebody, somebody would come and talk to me and 10 minutes later, we're all best buds?

What was it that we did that allowed us to connect so quickly?

Can't be an abundance of conversational topics, all we knew were sweets and toys. Can't be interpersonal skill, only thing I knew about people dynamics at the time was how to ellicit a scream from a girl in 25 seconds or less.

My guess, is a complete lack of self-consciousness and self-preservation, and not caring what the other person thought of me. That, and a lack of pre-conceptions of what the other person is.

Maybe, through knowing too much is getting in the way of converstaion and rapport. Maybe, just maybe, to find the lost art of conversation, we gotta forget what we "think" we know, and just be children again.