the things that make someone comfortable

or conversely, what makes someone uncomfortable to talk to?

i can think of a few things i think that are common among people
that i would regard as comfy to talk to. usually they meet some,
if not all of the following:

• not apprehensive to mutual silence
• a good track record of not flowcharting responses
• knowledgeable or willing to engage in a variety of topics
• responsive in a reasonable amount of time
  • they don’t need to respond immediately, but when they do show up, it should feel either like they feel bad about missing the earlier response window or they should be present with you whenever it is that they are taking time to respond

obviously these are blankets and there are exceptions to the rule.
someone can flowchart more regularly and they can still be generally comfortable
to talk to, as long as they meet some of the other bullet points.

but that is to say, for someone who i would find uncomfortable to talk to,
they would be missing at least one of those things. and honestly,
finding someone who meets all four is pretty rare. you should treasure
those people if and when you do meet them.

some things i think that make someone specifically uncomfortable to talk to:

• they try and force a specific vibe
• conversations with them almost always tend towards one topic
  • like no matter how hard you try it always goes back to x
  • or you both only tend to have meaningful conversations when it’s about x
• you can’t speak freely
  • this one sounds obvious but i mean getting the sense that you need to curate your response in order to continue having conversation with them. that shit sucks so bad

it’s important to notice these things so that you can understand
why you feel a particular way about conversations with people
before it turns into a confrontation.

thanks for reading today’s post.
that, and i think interpersonal phenomena are interesting.