How to Make the Most of Dinner Table Conversations with Your Relatives or Roommate

The following are suggestions I'd like to offer on how you might develop an even more successful rapport with your relatives or friends or roommates during dinner-table conversations you have with them in person inside your family's home or apartment unit:

(1) Prepare for that meal by identifying one current-events news item that you regard as particularly interesting or thought-provoking. Then, during the dinner-table conversation, you could volunteer your own personal reaction to that news story.

(2) Listen closely to what the person making a comment at the dinner table is saying. Make a point of letting him or her complete their remark before you contribute a thoughtful comment of your own. It is particularly helpful if your own comment politely responds to or refers to what the other person has just said.

(3) Pose questions to your dining companions that are designed to politely draw out their strengths and their keenest sources of enthusiasm. If your brother or sister comments at the family dinner table that he or she had enjoyed watching a television show that afternoon, you could respond politely with the question, "What did you particularly like about the TV show that you watched this afternoon? For instance, did you find the plot intriguing, or were you especially impressed by the dialogue in today's episode?"

(4) Make a point of praising the chef or cook at least once for any dish or dishes or beverages that you particularly enjoyed eating or drinking during that meal. Never take it for granted when anyone prepares a meal for you. You should feel grateful, from the very start, that that individual took the time to prepare and cook that meal for you.

(5) When another person at your dining table asks you a question, try to refrain from ignoring the question or giving an unhelpful or sarcastic or mean-sounding reply. "It's none of your business", for instance, can sound rude during family dinner table conversations. If you respond to a question by saying, "WHY are you asking me this?", your response might also come across as rude. Your response might give the impression that you are trying to put the other person on the defensive.

(6) Try to avoid regarding Hollywood fictional movies as your "guide" on how you should conduct yourself during family dinner table conversations.

In Hollywood movies, as you have noticed, one Hollywood actor portraying someone will often make a very sarcastic or profane or rude or cruel comment to another Hollywood actor portraying someone.

However, those actors definitely DO NOT expect you to talk like them in your own everyday life.

"I was just given this line to say by the scriptwriter and my director, and that is the ONLY reason why I told my boyfriend to 'go to hell' in that particular fictional dinner-table conversation we had that was part of our filmed Hollywood movie," as a Hollywood actress might quickly point out.

"In my private real-life conversations I have inside my private residence in Beverly Hills, California, I almost never make deliberately cruel comments to my mutual-consent boyfriend," that same Hollywood actress might emphasize to you. "I would never want to hurt his feelings."

Keep in mind that Hollywood directors generally strive to highlight conflicts between human beings, including the arguments and other conflicts that develop during family dinner-table conversations. Hollywood directors generally regard conflicts and arguments between characters in movies as "more interesting in front of the camera" than harmonious conversations between characters in movies.

(7) Try to learn something new about at least one of your dinner-table conversation partners inside your family's home or your private residence. You can achieve this constructive goal for yourself by pretending you are writing a respectful biography about the person sitting across from you at the dining table. Among the types of questions you might want to ask are:

---"Do you remember what your own favorite subject during your high school days was?"
---"Which of your employers have you had the best relationship with?"
---"Do you remember the funniest incident of your entire life so far?"
---"What is your favorite city or favorite place to visit during your leisuretime? What do you particularly like or love about that city or place?"
---"Could you refresh my memory on how old you were when you got married?"
---"Do you remember who encouraged you the most when you first began pursuing that favorite hobby of yours?"
---"What has been the biggest challenge that you have faced in your life so far?"
---"What was the name of the hospital where you were born?"
---"What is your most cherished memory or favorite anecdote about any of your grandparents?"
---"How many U.S. states have you lived in, and which state has been your favorite so far?"
---"Have you ever met any professional actor in person? Do you recall what you said to that actor, and what that actor said to you?"
---"Have you ever obtained an autograph from any famous person? Do you know what you did with that autograph? Did you start an autograph collection, for instance?"
---"What is your favorite wise saying? What makes that your favorite?"
---"Have you ever experienced financial hardship at any time during your life?"
---"How many other persons have you roomed with previously? What was it like to room with them?"
----"What is your favorite sport to watch? Why do you prefer to watch that sport over any other sport?"
----"What is your favorite color or shade of color? What makes that color or shade special to you?"
----"Do you remember when you first began recycling some of the items you'd used, such as paper or glass or plastic products, that in a prior period of your life you might have instead tossed into a trash can?"
----"Which steps have you taken to protect your own privacy rights?"
----"What do you love or like the most about the United States and American society? Also, what do you dislike the most about the United States or American society?"
----"Have you ever rejected another person and later learned that that individual failed to honor that rejection? What law-abiding steps did you take to prevent that person from contacting you or spying on you or stalking you?"
----"So tell me, if you could have a one-to-one meeting with the President of the United States, what would you tell him?"
----"Have you ever considered emigrating to a foreign nation? Which foreign nation did you consider emigrating to?"
-----"Have you ever ridden on a subway system or light-rail transit train within a city? Which subway or rail-transit system that you rode on did you like the best?"
----"If someone asked you to list your top five 'pet peeves' as a human being, what would they be?"
----"Do you remember the period of your life in which you experienced the biggest crisis of your life so far?"
----"If you could own a company of your own, what type of company would you want to own, and why?"
----"So tell me, which movie that you've watched has been your all-time favorite?"
----"Do you remember the very best personal advice that anyone ever gave you?"
----"Do you remember the most helpful career-related advice that anyone ever gave you?"
----"Do you remember what prompted you to stop smoking tobacco cigarettes, and how you were able to motivate yourself to quit that bad habit on a permanent basis?"
---"If you were asked during a job interview to cite your greatest strengths as a human being, which strengths would you cite about yourself?"
---"So tell me, which of your various mutual-consent personal friends do you regard as being your closest personal friend these days?"
---"Have you ever stopped being a friend or acquaintance of someone after you decided that he or she is a habitual or pathological liar?"