Conversation is a tricky animal.
Sometimes it flows like wine at a wedding, sometimes it falls flatter than a pancake on an Indy racetrack.
For those of you who are natural conversationalists, you don't know how you do it--you just do it.
For others, however, conversation is a mountain that we've made out of a mole-hill.
I consider myself to be a decent conversationalist.
I can hold my own in a social interaction.
For the most part, I don't find it too intimidating.
It hasn't always been like that, however.
I used to be an extremely shy person, turning red at the slightest hint of attention that was drawn to myself.
It's taken years of self-improvement for me to get to the place where being social with strangers isn't intimidating.
In this article, I want to share some of the things I've learned along the way.
The most profound advice I received about conversation came from a christian psychologist named James Dobson in his book entitled Life of the Edge.
I read this book several times as a teenager and, while the christian undertones are too much for me anymore, I still believe there's a lot of wisdom offered in this book.
The most profound piece was the part I read about conversation.
Dobson compared conversation to a tennis match.
In a tennis match you have the server who holds the tennis balls and the receiver who stands across the net waiting for the serve.
The server lobs up a ball and serves it across the net and the receiver takes the ball and hits it back.
They volley the ball back and forth until the ball flies out of bounds or gets by one of them.
At which point they serve another ball and another until the game is over.
Now, imagine if the server sent a ball across the net and the receiver just stood there.
How many serves do you think it would take for the server to get frustrated and walk off the court? Probably not many.
Conversation is the same way.
To illustrate, I want to show you two examples.
The first example is of someone who lets the "ball" go past them or catches the ball and holds onto it.
The second is an example of a free flowing conversation as if they volley the ball back and forth.
Example 1:

John: Hi.
How are you? Joe: I'm fine.
John: Nice weather we are having, huh? Joe: Yeah.
John: You from around here? Joe: Yeah.
John: Well, uh, ok.
I'll see you later.

Example 2:

John: Hi.
How are you? Joe: I'm good.
How are you doing? John: Good.
Nice weather we are having, huh? Joe: Yeah.
I hear it's going to rain later.
John: Man, I hope not! Are you from around here? Joe: Yeah.
I live a couple blocks up the street.
You? John: Yeah.
Actually, we live pretty close to each other because I live a couple of blocks up the street too.

Which conversation do you think went better? Did you notice how, in the second conversation, Joe was returning John's statements with something that had response value? That's the key of any conversation--response value.
If what you say has response value, you expect someone to return it with something you can add to and build on.
If it doesn't, then the person you are talking to has to either find something else to say or get out of the situation.
Another good key of conversation is the ability to ask questions.
There is a delicate balance to this, though, because if you hound your partner with questions, they are going to get a bit annoyed with you.
Nobody likes to play twenty questions.
My advice is to use questions to prime a conversation that is going dry or dying out.
Listen to the person you are talking to and see if you can't add to what they say in a way that allows them to know you better and still has response value.
Talking about mutual interests will help fuel conversations like this, which is why topics like sports and politics are so popular because everybody has an opinion on those things.
As you get to know someone better, you can start talking about more specific interests.
Use topics from the headlines to get to know people.
As you discover their interests, hone in on that interest and delve a little deeper--both by asking them questions and divulging something about yourself.
If possible, try to steer the conversation towards things you are mutually interested in or you are going to be stuck listening to someone all night and won't find mutual enjoyment in the conversation.
My final piece of advice is not to worry about silences.
If a conversation dies and you find yourself in silence, don't sweat it.
The mark of true friendship is the ability to comfortably share silence.
Remember that it takes two people to be silent, so if the other person isn't talking it's not YOUR fault.
Just roll with the silence and see if something else doesn't arise that you can talk about.
That's the basics.
The only other thing I can tell you is to practice.
The more you practice, the better you will get it at--just like a tennis match.
So, lob up the ball and serve it and see where it takes you.
You may find yourself pleasantly surprised.