Skip to main content

Good conversations have lots of doorknobs

experimental-history.com

The main reason we don’t create more affordances, however, is pure egocentrism. When we just say whatever pops into our heads, we may think we’re making craggy, climbable conversational rock walls, when in fact we’re creating completely frictionless surfaces. For example, I’m thrilled to tell you about the 126 escape rooms I’ve done, but my love for paying people $35 to lock me in a room blinds me to the fact that you probably do not give a hoot. I may even think I’m being generous by asking about your experiences with escape rooms, when my supposed giving is really just selfishness with a question mark at the end (“Enough of me talking about stuff I like. Time for you to talk about stuff I like!”).