My father gave me this book when I was 12 or 13. It unlocked everything, sort of permission for my teen self to put himself out there. Years later, I've made friends all over the world, some have been in my life for more than 3 decades now, and I continue to make new ones basically by initiating a lot of conversations. I look for something to naturally lean into to start with. For example, I saw a guy in the coffee place with his work badge on so I asked, "coming or going [to work]." Kicked off a 30 min conversation about the economy (he worked at a pawn shop as it turns out and knew a lot about gold, regional poverty, etc). Saw him a couple days later and we picked right back up. The other thing I do is keep it soft focused on them, 100%, until they ask me about me. Nothing kills a conversation faster than someone with a conversational agenda, ie, an go-to opinion. Anyway, I wish more people would start random conversations - it really helps build community.
> The other thing I do is keep it soft focused on them, 100%, until they ask me about me.
This is the big one. People like to talk about themselves, and often use others' stories to segue it into something about themselves.
I realized at some point if you can avoid doing that, and instead commit yourself to investing in a person's story - ask questions, make comments, etc, they'll think the world of you and often won't even realize why.
One of us! I actively avoid talking about myself until asked. (I'm usually not.) Most people love being the center of attention.
Would you say the reading level of the book is easy enough for a young kid? Did you struggle at all in reading it?
Some of the examples are going to be corny for a young kid, but none of the core concepts are too challenging. Some fashion of the knowledge has probably already been communicated to children, it is just a codification of social interaction that not everyone has passively absorbed.
It's pretty easy to read (but disclaimer : I read the french translation) but it's still nothing more than a list of useful advices on the topic. So the prerequisite is that you have to be interested by the idea of the book in the first place. But if you are, it's nothing more than a big blog post (a good one).
Thanks, that's doubly helpful ; I was thinking of gifting the French version and was also concerned the translation might be subpar.
Don't read the original, find a more abridged copy. The original gives too many examples for each point.
To be honest, the examples stuck with me. They illustrated tons of different social interaction examples that I have seldom, if never, encountered in my life, but have plenty to learn from.