My conversational kryptonite

A mini manifesto for real-time conversations

I’m obsessed with conversation.

You might have guessed it considering the name of this newsletter. I love learning about, thinking about, and most of all having conversations.

It’s rare that I go a day without one or more meaningful conversations. A two-hour dialogue with a friend, a creative sparring session, not to mention my coaching calls. They give me energy, help me progress through life, and are deeply inspiring to me.

But not all conversations are created equal, and there is one type of conversation that I struggle with big time. It’s pretty ironic considering, once again, the title of this newsletter.

It’s my own comment section.

Writing takes effort

Writing is hard, but that doesn’t mean I don’t do it.

Every week I go through the whole process of generating ideas, developing them (through conversation), writing drafts, receiving feedback, editing, and then finally, publishing.

It’s important to me, but it’s also exhausting.

And after a week of working on it, there’s nothing nicer than sitting back and seeing all the wonderfully interesting, encouraging, and thoughtful comments trickle in.

Until it sinks in that I should probably respond…

It’s not that I’m not interested in continuing the conversation or that I don’t appreciate the thought, time, and attention my commenters offer, it just seems to take me an inordinate amount of effort to craft a response.

Even when I plow through, it’s pretty much the same story every time. A reader leaves a comment, I struggle to answer, maybe I say something appreciative, sometimes we go back and forth a few times but the conversation usually ends there.

It’s somehow very hard to keep the conversation alive, and it leaves me feeling empty, unsatisfied, and somewhat disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy reading the comments, and I always want to respond. But more often than not, I don’t.

Growing my audience

I know, I know. These days we should all be having ‘conversations’ with people online. To grow our audience, find our true fans, and connect with our tribe.

I’ve heard the recommendations, and they might be true. Maybe I’m cutting myself off at the knees here.

I admire people that seem to be great at nurturing these conversations, having full-blown, lengthy debates in their comments sections.

The advice to ‘see it like work’ and set aside the time to dutifully respond in an attempt to keep people engaged (or even feed the algorithm), is making the resistance bubble up even while I’m writing this.

Maybe I’m just too old-school for this. I’ve confessed before that I’ve never owned a smartphone and I have no social media account of any kind. I could just be too far behind, or out of practice.

But when I’m having a real-time conversation with someone, it energizes me, where slaving away at crafting a response has the opposite effect.

So why don’t I stop complaining and simply turn off the community features in Substack? I have to admit, it’s tempting, but I’m not going to do it.

I really enjoy the comments and they often spark further thoughts (that sometimes turn into newsletters).

This is just me reaffirming where I want to put my conversational focus and energy and possibly get some other people fired up about the type of conversations I love most.

Real-time conversations.