Conversationalist

I recently observed an interesting contrast in my communication style. Two weeks ago, I was visiting a church in Windsor with a group from my church, as I wrote about here. This church, New Song Church, has a community meal every Friday evening and a casual snack-and-service thing every Saturday night. While we were there on the weekend, we were instructed to mix with the people there, start a few conversations and get to know them a bit.

That's never really been a problem for me. I've always been good at leading conversations with complete strangers, even if I'm just giving someone a ride home. My habit has always been to spot young men that look like they could use a friend. If the guy is single and in his late teens or early twenties, we usually find something with which we can relate and it's easy enough to have a half hour conversation with them. Consciously and/or unconsciously, I've always been drawn to developing friendships or starting conversations with people on the edge of group. (Is there something Freudian in that? I'll chalk it up to my God-given desire to disciple people.)

The contrast that I see in my life is that I don't like to start those same kinds of conversations for my own sake. If I'm the one on the edge of a group, I find it much more difficult to break into ongoing conversation and engage some people. This reluctance even seems silly to me sometimes if I hesitate to break into a group with whom I'm friends already.

Upon further review, I think that this contrast may relate to my personality type, as I wrote about here back in the day. I'm about 50-50 melancholy and phlegmatic, which means that I'm a logical introvert and that I'm an easy-going perfectionaist, respectively. The introverted side comes through in my conversational skills and my reticence in that area.

I used to think that I was more choleric, an extrovert, because that was my reputation when I was in youth group back in Wawa and since I've always been the leader of some ministry or worship team. When I first moved to London, it took me a while to figure out that I don't have to be the crazy, outgoing guy just because people expect it. I learned that the extroverted aspect of being a worship leader (in particular) are traits that I picked up out of necessity but I can still appreciate myself as a more introverted guy.

The trick is to allow myself to be introverted without excluding myself from conversations and without shutting out my own friends. I think that I have developed a fairly good balance but once in a while that wallflower in me still takes over. Yeah, it strikes me as somewhat funny.