There is an old saying about the quality of conversation that reveals more about a person than their clothing, their car, or the size of their home ever could. Small minds discuss people. Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas. You can dress someone up in a three-thousand-dollar suit, but the moment they start gossiping about the neighbors, you know exactly what you are dealing with.
Now, this does not mean you cannot talk about individuals when the context calls for it. Discussing a historical figure, analyzing a business leader's decisions, or sharing genuine concern about a friend's wellbeing is perfectly appropriate. What we are talking about here is the petty stuff. The who said what to whom. The tearing down of others to build yourself up. That kind of talk belongs nowhere, but it certainly does not belong at a dinner table where adults have gathered.
Then there is the matter of how we conduct ourselves in group conversation. Good manners are not complicated, but apparently they have become rare enough to qualify as exotic. When someone is speaking, you let them finish. Period. You do not jump in with your own story the moment you see an opening. You do not start a sidebar conversation with the person next to you while someone else is addressing the group. You do not talk over people as if your thoughts are so urgent they cannot wait another thirty seconds.
When you begin a separate conversation at a table while someone else is mid-thought, you are essentially announcing to everyone present that you find the speaker boring and your own interests more important. Maybe you do. But broadcasting it is what we call poor form.
And let us be honest about overtalking. We all know someone who treats every conversation like a filibuster. They never ask questions. They never pause. They simply deliver an endless monologue while everyone else stares at their salad and wonders how much longer this will go on. Here is a rule worth remembering. If you have been talking for more than two minutes without someone else contributing, you are not having a conversation. You are giving a speech nobody asked for.
Here is something I have learned after decades of dealing with people. You can tell everything you need to know about a person by the questions they ask. Or more precisely, by whether they ask any questions at all. Pay attention the next time you are in a conversation. Some people call you up or sit down across from you and immediately launch into their situation. Their problems. Their opinions. Their two cents on whatever is on their mind. They talk and talk and talk, and when they finally run out of steam, they say goodbye and hang up. Not once did they ask how your day went. Not once did they say tell me more about that. Not once did they express genuine curiosity about anything happening in your life.
Those people are telling you something important. They do not care about you. You are an audience, not a participant. You are there to listen, validate, and absorb whatever they need to unload. The moment you need something from them, watch how fast they become unavailable.
On the other hand, when someone asks how does that work or that is interesting, tell me more, they are demonstrating something rare. They are showing genuine interest. They are treating you like a person whose experiences and thoughts have value. Those are the people worth keeping in your life. Those are the people who understand that conversation is a two way street, not a monologue with a captive audience.
Now here is something that needs to be said about generational communication, and it requires a bit of grace from the younger folks in the room. When you have lived five, six, or seven decades on this earth, words and events carry layers of meaning that someone in their twenties or thirties simply has not accumulated yet. A single phrase can trigger memories from three different decades. A reference to a place or a person can connect to experiences that span half a century. Context is not always immediately obvious, and sometimes a parent or grandparent needs to ask a clarifying question to understand what you are talking about.
When that happens, the proper response is patience, not irritation. Yet too often, young people get frustrated when an older relative does not immediately grasp what they are saying. They roll their eyes. They snap. They act as if asking for clarification is some kind of personal insult. What they fail to understand is that the older person is trying to engage, trying to connect, trying to place what you are saying within a framework of experience that is far broader and more complex than their own.
The child who gets upset when you ask a simple question is revealing something about their own character, not yours. They are telling you they lack the patience and empathy to meet you where you are. And here is the hard truth. You cannot fix that. Children who grow up reacting that way tend to stay that way unless life teaches them otherwise, and sometimes it never does. Your job is not to chase after their approval or walk on eggshells to avoid their irritation. Your job is to be who you are, ask the questions you need to ask, and let them deal with their own immaturity in their own time.
You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Some folks are going to be who they are regardless of how many chances you give them to be better. Your job is not to fix them. Your job is to decide how much of your limited time on this earth you want to spend in their company.