At the end of the year, I struck up a friendship with someone I met while walking my dog Rodin. Let’s call her Gwen. At that time, our walking schedules coincided, and we would chat regularly. Gwen had a habit of sharing everything that came to her mind: what she had for breakfast, her medical appointments, her grocery list, not to mention her problems which she never failed to turn into crusades.
Inevitably, after telling me what was on her mind and in her heart, she would ask me, “And you, what do you have to share?”
I often meet talkative people who, like Gwen, have this ability to stage their lives and encounters. And I suspect you do too. A glance or a casual remark is enough to set off a well-oiled storytelling machine that we sometimes find hard to stop. When they’re done, or when they think they might have talked too much, they invite us in turn to become the narrators of our own adventures.
For a long time, I didn’t know how to do this, and I envied this natural ability to showcase these life episodes. My laconic responses or clumsy attempts only encouraged them to continue their monologue. I often wondered if they acted like that out of a lack of interest in others.
Yet, I thirsted for stimulating dialogues. So, eager to know why, I finally asked Gwen.
I give you permission to ask me questions
One day as we were walking along the Seine with our dogs, I suggested to Gwen that she ask me questions as if she wanted to get to know me better. She said something astonishing: “I’m afraid of bothering you with my questions.”
It wasn’t her fear of bothering me that surprised me; it was evident in her interactions with the joggers and passersby we encountered. It was the realization that we were perfect complements for this kind of conversation. For her, talking about herself was acceptable, while asking questions to another person was not. And for me, it was the opposite for a long time.
That day, to help her relax, I told her, “I explicitly give you permission to ask me questions. If I don’t feel like answering, I’ll let you know.”
And then I was bombarded with questions worthy of a police interrogation. “What did you have for breakfast?” “What colors for your website?” “Do you have any siblings?” I barely had time to answer before she was already throwing the next question at me.
Learning to ask questions
I tried to guide Gwen by giving her examples of questions I would have liked to be asked about my preferences, motivations, and worldview. After fifteen minutes of racking her brain, she gave up and said to me, “You know, I realize that I don’t know how to be interested in people.”
At that moment, I sympathized and told Gwen that it could be worked on. Even though I have always had plenty of questions within me (about others, the world, myself), I haven’t always been able to identify and articulate them. Even less so to use them intentionally to get to know people better.
For this, it’s not only necessary to let go of the idea that past a certain age we have lost our capacity to learn, but above all to realize that it will take time, that we will make mistakes, that we will have to repeat until we reinforce and integrate what we want to put in place. It’s no different from a baby learning to walk. It’s physiological; the body, the brain transform with learning.
As for questions, beyond the types (closed or open-ended) and interrogative words (who, what, where, when, why, how), there are a whole host of patterns and effects to explore. So, to start, I made lists of themes about places, people, actions, relationships, their history, their preferences… Then I defined what I wanted to do: clarify, explore, get an opinion, steer a discussion, or compare different things. By enriching this toolbox, I felt like I was expanding my potential for discovery and connection with others.
Thus, I discovered how to vary the flow and direction of the conversation so that I no longer just endured it. In theory, all I had to do was choose questions based on the desired effects to maintain my interest and weave a dialogue around a common interest. In practice, I needed something more to create a safe framework for my interlocutors and myself.
The importance of context and relationship
In 2022, I participated in a short story writing project with my writing coach Christine Leang and five other “young” writers (link to the article En Marge). The goal was to compile a collection for publication. It was a fantastic opportunity for me, and our regular online meetings helped us stay on track and fuel our motivation.
The topic I had chosen, “a mother who doesn’t love her child,” required me to do some research among the mothers in my circle. Yet, asking these kinds of questions to people close to me still seemed delicate, even with an improved toolbox.
After a few days of reflection, I had a list of points to explore to help structure the interviews, and I needed to get started before the next group meeting. During the first interview, I realized that instead of feeling embarrassed, I felt comfortable. I wasn’t just a curious person asking intrusive questions; I had become a writer doing research. Being in this role gave me all the assurance I needed to guide the discussion and redirect my interviewee if (it proved) necessary.
Their responses and the vulnerability they showed confirmed to me that we can ask questions that might seem inappropriate when roles and context align to provide a sense of security. Thus, not only was I able to obtain the essential information for creating my characters, but I also gained access to the stories and experiences of these women in a way that would not have been possible otherwise.
Learning to listen
All these interviews for the short story and interactions with Gwen show us that it’s never too late to make the effort to assess how we interact with others and that by developing our repertoire of questions, we can only enrich our relationship and the depth of our exchanges with them.
But beyond that, these encounters also raise a very important aspect. Knowing how to ask the right questions isn’t everything. If we simply go through a list or only worry about the information we lack, it’s easy to forget that we have a person in front of us. A person who, like an iceberg, shows only a tiny part of who they are. So remember that their silences and what they don’t say will always tell you more than their words.
In the second part of this series on questions, we will explore how to use questions to know oneself. In the meantime, continue to create your reality with intention.
Photo by Harshil Gudka on Unsplash