Many times, dinner is more than a moment during the day to eat; it is also a moment of social interaction. Thus, it is a good idea to also make the best out of it socially.
Many of us have dinner in social settings. We don’t eat alone; we eat with other people at the table: our spouse, our family, our friends or acquaintances. In other words, dinner time is frequently social time as well.
If you’re having dinner with other people, I think it’s desirable to use these opportunities for some meaningful social interaction. You don’t want to just have polite conversation and exchange platitudes, but to engage people in a satisfying way.
This is where knowing how to make dinner conversation comes in, as a highly valuable skill. In my experience as a communication coach, the best way to learn how to make dinner conversation is to practice a few key steps. Here they are.
Review Your Day
Dinner time is a good opportunity to think about your day and share how it’s been with the other people at the table (who typically tend to be valuable people in your life). It is this constant, daily sharing that helps people bond.
Don’t be the quiet guy or girl at the table. When you get asked about your day, don’t answer in one-word sentences such as “Fine” or “OK”. Use the opportunity to look back at your day and talk about specific things that happened.
You don’t need to have a highly exciting life, with very interesting things happening in every one of your days in order to talk about it. Whatever life you have is enough. Whatever kind of day you had, simply pick various elements from it and talk.
Focus On the Positive
Dinner time and the end of the day is a chance to put yourself and other in a good mood, and to end the day that way. It’s definitely not a good idea to end your day stressed and upset, and go to sleep like that.
Considering this, it is essential to make dinner conversation positive and fun. Don’t start blabbing on about the dumb people you deal with at work or the problems you have. And don’t let others at the table turn dinner conversation into a whining fest.
As an alternative, think about the good, fun or interesting things that happened throughout the day and talk about those. Surely there most be some positive things in your daily life that you can share and be thankful for. Well, concentrate on those.
Give Everybody Your Attention
It is common in dinner time conversation for one person to dominate the conversation, while the rest barely get a word in. It is true that some people like to talk more and some like to listen more, but a conversational dynamic like the one I just described is not constructive.
Typically, in such a scenario, one or more persons at the dinner table feel left out and they get completely bored with the conversation, which is why the may eat as fast as possible and leave the table.
If you want to make good dinner conversation, make sure it is inclusive, not exclusive. Give everybody a chance to talk and ask the quiet people questions to get them involved, listen to everybody and navigate the conversation toward topics everyone at the table can relate to.
Apply these simple tenets and you’ll find dinner talk enjoyable and meaningful. You’ll see it as a social situation to look up to after a long day, not as something to avoid.
Eduard Ezeanu helps people achieve social success. If this article was helpful, also learn conversation topics and discover how to be more outgoing from two first-class articles on his social skills coaching blog.