Awkward silences during a phone chat are never any fun… unless you’re prepared to deal with it! With these 5 pre-phone chat preparation tips, your phone chat date will think you’re so smooth and charming, they’ll never want to hang up the phone!Stay Prepared
Before you pick up the phone, prep for any awkward silences you might encounter by having extra speaking topics on hand. If the prospect of awkward silences really unnerves you, write down your extra topics! Having a backup on hand makes going into a phone chat less daunting. Extra topics you can keep in mind are: favourite restaurants/cuisine, favourite music, or current events!
Perception Is Everything
There’s a reason some people say that silence is gold… because it can be! Nothing says awkward silence than perceiving it as an awkward silence. Not all pauses in a phone chat should be conceived as awkward; think of it as an invitation to bring a new topic into the conversation or that could also mean that it’s time to say goodbye until next time!
Tell A Story & Make Them Participate
Share a story from your childhood or a recent incident during your phone chat! Tell the story so that it can invite your phone chat partner to participate by sharing his or her own story that’s similar to yours! Nothing keeps the conversation going like sharing stories and you might find a lot less awkward silences to power through once you two get the flow going!
Listen Carefully
Many awkward silences during a phone chat happen because one person wasn’t listening to the other. Oftentimes it’s because your partner asked you a question without realizing it was a question, so you’ve left them hanging with an awkward silence. Not only is this rude to stop listening to your phone chat partner, but you’ve created an unnecessary awkward silence! If you find yourself in a sticky situation like this, simply address your mistake, apologize for spacing out, and ask them to repeat what they’ve said. People are usually forgiving for a mistake like this, but if you find yourself spacing out more than you should, maybe you should reflect on whether you like your partner or not.
Avoid One-Word Responses
It’s important to have conversational questions/topics that invite open-ended responses. Try to stay away from one-word responses yourself and awkward silences should be a thing of the past!
In the end, when you’ve exerted all your effort to get past the awkward silences and your phone chat partner doesn’t even try to help, then perhaps it’s time to move on! Not all phone conversations have to flow smoothly, but when your partner isn’t into it, that’s totally fine! At least you’ll have had the chance to practice dodging awkward silences for next time!