"All good?" - From sending and listening
"Well, how are things?" "Good..." "Well, things are going great for me at the moment, everything's fine, dog cat mouse, everyone's doing well, business is booming, I'm going on vacation next week, brand new hotel, nobody knows it yet, insider tip, yes, well, I have to go, it was nice chatting with you." Sound familiar to you?
Katrin, you inspired me. You listened the other day, asked questions and asked follow-up questions that suggested you were listening. You talked to me about listening and not listening, you sent and received. Great tennis! I benefited from the fact that you read so much and had really exciting tips, without me anchoring you in the bookworm corner. You integrated another woman into our conversation in a very elegant way. You then picked up the thread that only the two of us had with each other in an even more elegant way. I found out that you are a very elegant woman overall (I knew that anyway), but that you are so refreshing and down-to-earth at the same time. You love staying in a guesthouse in South Tyrol and not in a five-star hotel with high-tech spa chichi. I wouldn't have thought so. You enjoy talking to the locals and don't necessarily need the bubble you usually surround yourself with on vacation. You have very nice teeth, I know that because we laughed a lot, and you have a very straight gait, I can see that and I know your husband is an orthopaedic surgeon. I really enjoyed our conversation. Emphasis on conversation.
"All good?"
Lately, and we've both noticed this, the "All good!" -faction, which only broadcasts, is getting bigger and bigger. Of course, in true American-way-of-life style, we usually answer "fine" when asked how we're doing. But the question is increasingly often: "Are you okay?" and no longer: "How are you?" And yes, we don't want to answer most of our fellow human beings as deeply as we would like them to know about all our ailments, worries and hardships.
But the fact that very few people who are also part of your inner circle don't want to go beyond the obligatory "good" is somewhat new. Is this the common zeitgeist? Or are we in a competition, a battle of comparison? After all, I've heard from a few people recently that they feel the same way, which suggests that I'm still surrounded by many people who are interested in a real exchange.
The "Ich-AGler
"My son is studying in Amsterdam." "Mine was accepted at Yale." "I've been thinking about keeping my old car." I've been thinking about switching completely to electric, we're just having the charging points installed in front of our house." "I'm going to Austria in winter." "Oh, is there any snow there? We'd rather go heli-skiing in the Rockies." Okay, okay, I'm exaggerating a little, and I could ask questions instead of always starting my sentences with "I", but that's the vibe I'm feeling. You often get an answer to the question: "How are things going?", but even if I already know one hundred percent that things aren't going so well with the other person, the answer is often: "Great. Oh yes, that, but that's okay, let's talk about something nice." Of course, I have nothing against talking about "something nice", but I have the feeling that the empathy, the interest in people, in things that aren't so nice, goes down the drain. Knowing that the daughter is a big stoner and all the studies indicate that this can't go on forever, you don't get the answer: "Right, I'll talk to her, I'm worried too" when you ask, but you find out that she's actually a kind of Mother Theresa at heart and has everything under control anyway.
Classic ping pong
But the essence of the conversation is that if you say: "My son is going to study in Amsterdam", you will then be asked: "Oh yes, how nice, what is he studying, has he found an apartment?" Then you could answer and say: "Social pedagogy. He's living in student accommodation for now." But that usually doesn't happen because the sentence: "My son will be studying in Amsterdam" is followed by: "Mine has been accepted at Yale." And then, completely unasked, comes the rest of the information: "Great place, great people, strong selection process, mega career prospects on the high-level course", and so on and so forth, he's already on the football team and the most beautiful girls are queuing up outside the door of his maisonette apartment, which he shares with the second-best guy on campus, not cheap, all that bumms, "but what can you do, hehe".
My favorite question from some of my counterparts lately is, "How's your dad doing?" To be honest, I'm only prepared to answer this question if the person I'm talking to is genuinely interested and doesn't just use it as a polite phrase because that's what I've been taught and to make me feel warm and fuzzy. Which, by the way, immediately drops to minus 10 degrees when the person I'm talking to, surprisingly, actually tells me how my father is doing (and I'll be brief, because I could write a whole novel about how my father is doing), looks at their cell phone, says: "Yes, you told me that the other day", calls the waiter ("Pay, please") and then invites me in. On the way out, he taps me on the shoulder: "Oh, it's nice that we've finally had a proper chat again."
In light of this engaging discourse, it's interesting to note that many individuals today, both internationally and locally, tend to focus more on broadcasting their own experiences instead of delving deeper into others' lives. For instance, you might often hear responses like, "Everything's going well, I'm living an 'International Lifestyle', traveling to different countries and experiencing diverse cultures." This shift in communication style can be seen as a reflection of our modern, fast-paced global society.
Source: www.ntv.de
