"What About You?" (Conversation Partner 4)

I met up with Harrison for the fourth time yesterday. Time has flown by! We started to talk about football right off the bat (logically).  It's so great to see Harrison get fired up about something as American as football! We discussed our mutual grief over the team's performance, with Harrison mentioning that he was appalled at their performance in the second half (weren't we all?).

When I came up to talk, he was reading a book about birth order and how it defines a person's personality. I asked him if he was reading it for class or pleasure. He said, "Class first, me second." I thought this was a funny way of answering. Usually the two are never thought to be compatible. You either hate the book because your teacher made you read it or you love it because you chose it. (Yes, this is an exaggeration. I was one of those kids who enjoyed many of my assigned readings.) This little bit of wisdom in his turn of phrase was just wonderful and incredibly insightful.

Harrison went on to tell me about his interest in psychology, and how he believes that it can be applied to life in general. I definitely agree. I recommended that he take a psychology class sometime to fuel his curiosity.

But then came the more interesting part of the conversation.

Usually, I ask the questions in our conversations. This allows Harrison to speak and really practice speaking. Also, I think my journalism training instills within me the innate desire to be the one asking the questions, not answering them. Yes, I contribute to the conversation, but I usually try to make the focus of our talks on what Harrison says.

Then he asked me, "What about you?" after we had talked about school and how our weeks were going. Harrison asks me clarification questions all the time, but this was the first time I that I can think of he asked me a personal question.

It caught me off guard (We journalism majors like to be the ones steering the conversation. All deviations result in the fight or flight complex settling in. Since I neither wanted to fight Harrison nor abruptly leave the conversation, I swallowed the impulse and answered the question.) I talked about me. I talked about how I was feeling and how my week was. And Harrison listened excellently. It was an interesting change of pace.

After this conversation, I no longer feel the need to keep asking questions to solicit an answer and fill time up with talking. Harrison and I can have an actual conversation, complete with two active participants, instead of an interviewer and an interviewee.

It's new and a little scary, but it's real.