july

an invaluable, and seemingly rare, skill

is the ability to contribute to a conversation

without relating / pivoting every single point 

to one's own experience.

Photographer | Artist | PhD🫀🤘 
/mountains /feelsgoodman /alexmack 
👉 https://linktr.ee/alexmackenzie

I catch myself doing this, then I try to do better.
It's not showing how you can relate, it's as you described, pivoting the conversation towards yourself.

We've been conditioned to always want the attention, thanks social media, and now when we converse with another person, we can't wait to make everything about ourselves.

I enjoy asking questions in conversations and in interviews definitely aim to do so even more, and I find myself a little disappointed when interviewers on podcasts or otherwise immediately respond by providing a related story rather than digging deeper into the topic / experience of the interviewee. I think much of it comes with practice and I agree social media could have some influence on how folks learn to converse.