Competitive conversation

Helga finds it difficult to change the subject when talking to her elderly mother. Her older friend Astrid, has some observations on this.

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Helga: I was talking to her last night, and you know, as usual, from minute 1 to goodbye, it was all about health. The heart, the nausea, the back ache.

Astrid: It’s all old people are conscious of. Haven't you noticed, it’s all about health and the past. The aches and pains and how things were better before.

Helga: And young people talk about their plans and the future and what they’re going to do, almost never health.

Astrid: Maybe diet.

Helga: But sometimes I think old people talking about health are almost competing. My back pain is a lot worse then your back pain. You think you have a bad knee? That’s nothing! I can’t even get up the steps without my stick.

Astrid: Well maybe competition runs through conversation of the old and the young, just the topics change. Like young guys. My car is faster then yours. And we women, you know my sister asked me just yesterday, what have you done to your hair? It was an opener so she could show off her new hairstyle.

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Voiceover

Competition in conversation, or capping what someone else is saying, may, as Astrid surmises, be seen in the talk of men and women, old and young, irrespective of topic.

You finish telling a story and someone else chips in with, “I remember once when Doris and I…"

Substitute “I remember once…” with “Have you heard the one about…” or “Let me tell you…” or “That’s nothing…” and you are in a round of storytelling where each punch line is expected to be more surprising than the last. If it isn’t, the narrator loses.

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