Onomatopoeia and other simple solutions...

I do not consider myself to be a great conversationalist. I hate chit chat, and I don't like to engage in small talk about weather patterns I know nothing about, sports teams I don't watch or other such banter. I don't care if a person comes up to talk to me about the decomposition rate of baby diapers in America's landfills, anything is better than using the spoken language merely to break the silence, without being genuinely interested in what is being said.

It is common in the United States and even in other countries to use the phrase "How are you" as a greeting. After having dissected and evaluated this greeting, I have come to two very important conclusions:

1. This greeting is an interrogative, AKA a question.
2. This interrogative greeting is rather specific in its intent to require a response.

If you are not a hermit and have been in public recently, you probably have encountered someone who greeted you in this manner. How did you respond? Did you respond with "Good," "OK," "I am doing well," or did you decide to answer with a re-interrogative response such as "How YOU doin'?"

More likely than not, your response generally resembles the above samples. Tonight I asked this question, and for the first time in a while I got a genuine response. The person told me they had been at a funeral. From there we had an extremely interesting and engaging conversation covering a plethora of topics such as the value of life, alcoholism, heaven and medicine. Had this person merely said, "Doing fine," or some such response, I never would have had the opportunity to experience the depth of this person's thought on heaven. I never would have been able to help her pray for people she loves. I may never have really known those beautiful places inside her.

The point is, conversation is one of the most blessed things humans have. We communicate on a level that no other animal may partake in. If this is so, lets use it to talk about good and beautiful things, encouraging each other, and other such activities.

Again, I sometimes think I am not a good conversationalist. Mainly because I fall into the trap of using prefabricated phrases, questions and responses. So, I want to warn you in advance. I am embarking on an experiment. I will be using open ended questions instead of yes/no questions. I may even approach you with a one word interrogative followed by a long awkward silence in order to provoke you to respond genuinely instead of having a prefab response to a question. I am thinking about approaching people and using onomatopoeia to greet them. One example of this may be "Bang, bang (insert name here)! What say you my main ring-a-ding?"

Lets use language to talk, and quit using it to avoid each other. Engage someone, you may be surprised to find out they have something good to say, or that you say just the right thing that makes their day a little brighter.