---
title: "Even When I'm Told to Speak Freely"
url: "https://blog.101ta28.com/en/posts/speaking-freely-is-hard/"
language: "en"
description: "Thoughts on why speaking freely can be difficult when conversation topics do not come naturally, and how collecting small ideas may help."
---

# Even When I'm Told to Speak Freely

> Thoughts on why speaking freely can be difficult when conversation topics do not come naturally, and how collecting small ideas may help.

I'm not very good at conversation.

More precisely, I'm not good at coming up with topics to talk about.

Work-related communication is fine.
Practical conversations and day-to-day exchanges usually aren't a problem either.

The real difficulty is with private relationships, like family and friends.
I simply don't have many things to talk about.
Work is full of things I can't easily share outside.
As for hobbies, I mostly just play games at home or sleep.
That is pretty much my routine every week.

So I end up with nothing to talk about.

Many people kindly tell me, "Just be yourself" or "Feel free."
I genuinely appreciate that, and I am thankful those relationships continue.
At the same time, though, I think it also puts some burden on the other person.
If I stay in the role of listener, it is almost like I am drawing topics out of them.
And once they run out of things to say, the conversation simply ends there.

A little while ago, I wrote an article called [How to Lower the Bar for Output]({{< ref "posts/how-to-lower-the-bar-for-output" >}}).
I still think that advice is useful when the medium is text and there is time to think.
But conversation is different.
It is sound-based and immediate, which makes it much harder.

There is no particular punchline here.
The only countermeasure I can think of is to keep collecting small bits of information that might later turn into conversation topics.