How to have conversations, part 2

“Is this an interview?” Krystof asked, smiling. “How many siblings do you have? Do they play beach volleyball? Who plays beach volleyball the best? What other sports do you play?”

“You have a good memory,” Amy said. “You remembered all my questions.”

“Only the boring ones,” Krystof said, still smiling. “Just kidding,” he added quickly.

If I’m being honest, I was irritated.

There were four of us at the breakfast table, but the conversation had turned into a rapid-fire Q&A, with Amy directing questions at Krystof. Claire and I were left without much to contribute, so we started our own side conversation. That’s not the end of the world, but it feels awkward and not my ideal for a table of 4.

Some context matters here. Krystof is from the Czech Republic and is one of the coaches at the beach volleyball camp, so it’s natural that people want to get to know him. Amy is also genuinely lovely. She would regularly invite me to join her at meals if she saw me walking around alone, which is a kindness I noticed and appreciated. If we lived in the same area, I could easily see us becoming volleyball friends.

In my earlier post about how to have conversations, I wrote that you need curiosity to be a good conversationalist. I want to add here that you also need awareness. Asking questions is great. Asking too many, without widening the circle, can quietly exclude people without meaning to. The goal isn’t to extract information from one person, but to create space where everyone at the table has a way in. Good conversations (even between 2 people) need to have a healthy back-and-forth, and while asking questions are a big part of it, there’s a problem if only one person is asking the questions.

It feels strange that I’m the one writing this post at all, as if I’m the official arbiter on what a good conversation is. I also sometimes wonder if friends become a little self-conscious talking to me, worried they might end up in a future post. This is not an unreasonable fear.

Breakfast ended the way breakfasts usually did during the camp. A few final sips of coffee or tea, chairs pushed back, everyone headed off to the next training session. Nothing was resolved, because nothing really needed to be. Maybe that’s why it stuck with me. Not because it was awkward, but because it didn’t have to be. It was the kind of conversation that could have gone in a dozen interesting directions, and instead stayed narrow. We all adjusted, ate our breakfast, and moved on.

Names may or may not have been changed to protect people who like to ask a lot of questions.