How hard can it be to get a conversation going?

Last night we had some friends over for dinner. Friends who have two daughters. Actually, one of the daughters had lunch here earlier in the week and prompted this post. The dad is one of the most talkative men I think I've ever met. So it was interesting to see him interact with our boys and try to get some conversation out of them.

The easiest hits were the disgusting ones, like snot and toilet humour. Also sharing favourite jokes worked pretty well.

Harder were other attempts at conversation. The most memorable being this question, which he threw at our 12 y.o.:

"Tell me how your parents met."

Our son ummed and ahhhed. He had no idea. One of his brothers suggested we were at school together, but that isn't true (the truth is university, actually). So I threw a clue at them. I suggested that he could tell them the country where we first got to know each other well. Well, he knows a lot of countries and guessed and guessed and guessed . . . but he never guessed the right one: Indonesia.

It isn't that we are reluctant to talk about our romance or past, but who wants to hear? I suggested later as I said goodnight to our eldest, that when we are camping next week would be a good opportunity for us to tell them The Story. He quickly declined!

After that failure, our sole visiting incorrigible male asked, "What do you guys usually talk about at meals?" Well, that is just it. We struggle to get any decent kind of conversation going at all. Occasionally they surprise us, but usually not.

Tonight David was at the store a little late, getting last minute camping essentials (like a table), so I started dinner without him. I tried to get the boys to talk about what different things we'll have to do to get the campsite set-up. They offered a couple of useful suggestions, but within a couple of minutes of asking the question they were off down the path of, "We'll have to build a toilet . . . " Which I pointed out, wasn't true (the campsite has toilets and showers). But that didn't deter them, they were off down their favourite silly path of conversation and wouldn't easily turn back.

So I turned to my usual trick for helping them get through a meal without us fighting the whole way to have appropriate conversation. I picked up the Famous Five book and read the next two chapters.

One day . . . I live in hope!