How to fake a conversation (when people are boring or annoying)

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I think...

Seven?

No.

Maybe...

Maybe eight?

Yeah.

No, no, no.

No.

It'll be perfect.

I'm going to love it.

It's going to be so great.

Yeah?

Okay.

Yeah.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Hi.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was just talking to my friends.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So...

Actually, I wasn't talking to my friends.

I was faking a conversation.

I do this.

I admit it.

Ronnie, why do you fake conversations with people?

To be honest, I just don't want to talk to people a lot.

Oh, I'm so antisocial.

True story.

So sometimes when it's early in the morning and I'm walking my pet hamster, people want

to talk to me about it and say, "Oh, look at your pet hamster.

Is it a boy hamster or a girl hamster?"

I'm like, "It doesn't matter."

So, I pretend to talk to my mom on the phone.

I'm always talking to my mom on the phone.

I have these new headphone things, too, that really make it easier, but old school talking

on the phone.

When you are talking on the phone, people don't seem to talk to you as much.

Some people still do.

It's like, "I'm on the phone."

Really embarrassing when the phone rings because someone's actually called you.

It's usually someone, telemarketers.

But why would you fake a conversation?

So, I'm going to teach you, first of all, how to do it, but let me give you some background

on why you do it.

Maybe you are at work or you're doing something with a business, which is kind of work, the

same thing as well, and you're talking to a client or you're talking to a customer,

and you really need them to think you're paying attention.

Second one, maybe you're on the phone, but you're actually doing something else, okay?

We call this "multitasking", so multitasking means you're doing something else.

So, for example, I'm talking on the phone, I've got my new headphone things in, but I'm

actually at the same time, like, cooking dinner and playing the piano, because I do that.

I play the piano and I cook dinner with my feet.

It's great.

I don't want the person to think that I'm doing that.

I want them to think that I'm only focusing on them.

Like right now, you guys wouldn't know, but I'm knitting with my toes.

So, you guys think, "Oh, Ronnie's, like, totally into this filming thing."

I'm actually making rugs down here.

So, yeah.

And other times you're just not interested in what the person's saying.

"Uh-huh, uh-huh, oh yeah, okay, oh god", and you know, you want the pause in the conversation

so you can hang up, but no, they're just talking incessantly.

Incessantly means all the time.

So, here are some things to help you make it look like you're paying attention.

It'd be great.

Your conference calls are going to be fantastic after this lesson, guys.

Eye contact.

Look at the people.

If you're online, if you're on a Zoom lesson, or a Skype lesson, or whatever, those Zoomy

bits, teams, whatever, keep your eyes on the little dot on the camera there, okay?

Because the more eye contact you make, people think that they're looking at you.

When I'm making videos for you guys, if I looked over there the whole time, they'd be

like, "Ronnie, over here.

Oh, hey, yeah."

So, "Oh, but I'm paying attention though."

So, as I was saying, if you don't look at the people, they don't think that you're actually

paying attention to them, and they think you're doing something else or paying attention to

another thing.

So, eye contact, number one.

Be very aware of your eyes.

Some people, like genius, they draw, like, eyeballs on their eyelids, and they sleep.

Love that.

Facial features, smile.

If you have a grumpy face, or a sad face, or you're picking your nose or something,

people think that you're not paying attention to them.

And it also gives some bad verbal clues, like in a meeting, if you're standing or sitting

there and you're like, "Ugh", people are not going to want to talk to you, they're going

to think that you're bored, because you are, you are bored.

But you want to fake it, it's all about faking it, so smile.

Even if you don't understand or agree with what the person's telling you, smile.

It makes the world go round, or some cliche about a smile.

Your body language, if I'm talking to you and my hands are like this, or I'm listening

to you and my hands are like this, it kind of indicates that I'm paying attention to

you.

But if, you know, doing different things over here, or like, the person's getting a clear

message that you're not really paying attention to what they're talking about.

So, eye contact, super important.

Body language, facial features, and especially on interface, Zoom, Skype, Teams meetings,

your hands, keep them where they can see them.

Don't put them where they can see them.

If you're on a conference call, and you're texting on your phone, and they can clearly

see that you're texting on your phone, guess what?

You might have some repercussions to talk about with your boss, so keep your hands away.

You can do whatever you want under the table, okay?

You can paint with your toes, you can make brownies, it doesn't matter.

But make sure that your hands are not visible in your camera, because when you're doing

other things, and people can see it, and guess what?

They know you're not paying attention.

Don't play video games on your phone when you're in a meeting, because you're like,

"Oh, I...

Oh, man.

Oh."

Phone down.

Phone down.

Watch out for your hands.

This is a really, really good way to let the person know that you're actually listening

to them on the phone, or even face-to-face.

We have these things called "filler words".

So, the other person's talking, and you say things like, "Mm-hmm", "Uh-huh", "Mm-hmm",

"Ah".

They don't really mean anything, but the clues that they're sending the speaker are phenomenal.

And you will find this yourself if you're struggling to speak another language.

If you're speaking to the person, and they don't make any facial clues, they don't smile,

their hands are moving around, and they don't say things like, "Mm-hmm", or at least nod

their head - this means nod - you have no idea if they understand you or if they're

paying attention to you.

And it...

Because you're not speaking your first language, you get a little intimidated or scared, like,

"Oh, does the person understand me?

Oh my god."

So, it's very important that you, as a listener, do these little "Mm-hmm", "Mm-hmm" little

sounds.

So, you can fake that on the phone.

"Mm-hmm", "Mm-hmm".

Like that.

"Mm-hmm", "Mm-hmm".

Yeah.

"Mm-hmm", "Mm-hmm".

That's all you have to do.

"Mm-hmm", "Mm-hmm".

And people think that you're listening to them.

It's great.

"Oh, pfft, are you listening?"

Okay.

Really important, ask them questions.

So, you're talking about something, and you ask them a question, or they're "yap, yap,

yap".

They're talking about something.

"Oh, wow.

Oh, you went...

You went out for dinner.

Cool.

What did you eat?

Don't care.

But what did you eat?"

The person's really excited and interested in my story.

Not really, but they're so interested in my story, because I'm asking them questions about

what they're talking about.

Please make sure that they're actually relevant to the conversation.

Make sure they match the person's conversation.

If the person says, "You know, I went out for dinner with Patsy", like, "Wow, okay.

Yeah, I saw that camel, too."

"What?

Oh, no.

Did you have a poo?"

No.

Make sure that you pay enough attention so you know the topic, at least, of what you're

talking about.

And another really cool thing, I do this.

I'm kind of not good at paying attention because, blame it on my birthday, but people will be

talking to me, and I'll zone out and be like, "Whoa, what's over there?

Oh, see, I just did it.

What's over there?"

And then I'll fade back into the conversation, I'll listen to the person again.

A really great technique is you repeat the last thing you remember them saying, even

if it's like, "Well, your dog did what?"

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how obscure the context was.

If you repeat it, the person thinks, "Oh, that person was listening to me.

I didn't think they were because they were staring over there, but because they repeated

what I said or paraphrased it..."

Paraphrase means you don't say the exact same words, but you say, "Oh, so your canine was

doing something."

Paraphrasing means you say the similar message, but different words.

So, you paraphrase what the person says, they think you're paying attention to them.

Now, this is also really, really good.

When you want to pay attention to someone.

So, all of these things you have to do in order to make the person understand that you're

actually interested in the conversation.

So, if you want to fake it, you're going to do these, but hey, guess what?

If you really want to have a conversation with someone and let the speaker know that

you're interested in what they're saying, do these things, too.

You're really going to confuse them, go, "Oh, no.

Are they interested in what I was saying or not?"

It doesn't matter.

You get to choose if you're faking it or doing it real, but as long as you do these things,

you're going to have fantastic conversations with people.

It'll be great.

Okay, I'm going to go now.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me, and I'll be happy to answer them.