Rorschach conversations: the inkblot of words

Rarely do I meet someone who outcompetes me as the primary question asker. I like to get people talking because nothing is more fascinating than listening to the ways people speak about themselves. Much more than the words coming out of their mouths, if you pay close enough attention you hear the layers of self-perception surrounding those words. You learn what someone thinks about herself. What she feels. What she refuses to feel. You hear her story, and the story surrounding the story created in the Rorschach space between the words and their narrator.

That’s why I’m thrown off when I meet someone who insists on making me the storyteller. One such encounter happened today.

We began by trading tales of how we know the mutual friend who had introduced us. And then before I had the chance she hip-fired a question, white-labeling the classic tell me about yourself — familiar, open-ended, double-clickable. A petri dish of an opener. I was dealing with an expert.

I wouldn’t lay down my sword so easily, but for now I’d play along.

I launched into my monologue: There and Back Again, adventures from Scottsdale to Scottsdale. I didn’t get far before the seeds of her opener bloomed into a garden of forking paths.

Me: At Duke, the tide swept me into investment banking.

Her: You don’t seem like the big co. type.

Me: You’re right.

Her: You’d die there.

Me: It wouldn’t be a funnel for my passions.

Her: What are you passionate about?

This continued. She prompted, I answered. I must have been dominating 90% of the conversation. By her design, not mine. And to my surprise none of my usual conversational maneuvers that subtly hand the microphone over to my interlocutor seemed to stop the onslaught.

I wasn’t done trying. I still had one more weapon in reserve, the blunt one:

Me: I’ve been rambling on about myself. Tell me about you.

To which she let out an inside joke’s laugh and without pause: I want to hear more about your dating app. We can talk about me later.

Bested, yet again, I complied. I recounted the story like any founder with an eager audience — captivating and fictive in its optimism and linearity.

I had given her exactly what I would’ve wanted as the person ordinarily asking the questions. The founder’s story had it all: a rich tapestry of actions, experiences, motivations, and feelings from which to weave together the mesh of my mind. My story.

When she finally began talking about herself, everything immediately made sense.

Her: I was a psychotherapist for 20 years. I had been considering closing shop for awhile, and then I had some psychedelic journeys and made the decision.

I was right. I was dealing with an expert.

Reflecting on that conversation leads me to wonder about her interpretation of my story. I could jump up a meta layer and ask her. If I did that, I would become the de facto primary question asker. As she answered, I’d have to imagine she would once again want to ask me more questions.