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Comment by kelseyfrog | Hacker News Reader

There is a friend in my life who I meet with regularly in a small group setting that falls into this category - never seeming to reciprocate.

When I imagine asking him, "What don't you ask questions about my life?" I assume I'd get a response something like, "You can tell me anything," or "I'm open to hearing what you want to talk about," or "You're free to talk about anything."

If I had to devise a quick mental model, it might seem like the difference between talking at someone vs talking with someone? I might have to think about that a bit more. Do you have any insight here?

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> When I imagine asking him, "What don't you ask questions about my life?" I assume I'd get a response something like, "You can tell me anything," or "I'm open to hearing what you want to talk about," or "You're free to talk about anything."

I think this is the insight!

> If I had to devise a quick mental model, it might seem like the difference between talking at someone vs talking with someone?

(And I think this is semantics.)

Excuse me if I read that wrong, but I'd be curious why you think label "talking at" vs "talking with" is semantics.

I see a significant difference between the distribution of behaviors and utterances when I'm "talking at" vs "talking with". There's also a significant difference in response I seem to receive from people when I employ one distribution of behaviors vs the other. But, maybe you see it differently?

I agree. “Talking at” might as well involve a cardboard cutout of my face and a tape recorder that plays back “hmm” and “wow” utterances at random intervals.

My being there in person doesn’t materially affect what the other person experiences from me anyway.

I was trying to compliment you! When you talk about your friend, about what you might ask him, and what he might answer, I think you have insight there. I think that's valuable.

And I should have stopped there. But I went on to try to make a point about the quick mental model you proposed about "talking at" vs "talking with". Which I think leads to arguing about semantics (with others or yourself).

What you're saying about the difference between the distribution of behaviors and utterances sounds reasonable to me (if a bit abstract). I just think the specific insight into your friend's behavior is a lot more valuable.

D'oh! thank you. Leave it to the medium of text to throw a wrench into things!

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