When Did Conversation Become So Boring?

One morning, a friend and I decided to grab coffee at a local café and catch up. It had been a while since we'd seen each other, so I figured we'd have plenty to talk about. Once we got there, we greeted each other and sat down with our drinks. I asked the infamous question:

"So... how have you been?"

"Good."

Silence.

After sitting in silence for what felt like an uncomfortably long time, waiting for a question back—or really, anything—I figured maybe they just needed something to warm up. So I tried again, this time bringing up someone I knew they were close with.

"How's so-and-so?"

"Good."

Another silence.

As the conversation went on, it felt less like catching up with a friend and more like begging a celebrity to give me an interview. I realized I was the only one asking questions, introducing new topics, and trying to keep the conversation alive. When we finally left, I couldn't stop wondering: Did this person simply not feel like talking—even though we'd planned this coffee just to catch up? Or do some people genuinely not know how to converse?

Curious, I decided to investigate.

Over the next few days, I called a few friends just to see what would happen if I started a conversation and let them take it wherever they wanted.

One call went something like this.

Me: Hey!

Them: Hey.

Me: Oh my gosh, it's been so long! What have you been up to?

Them: Nothing much. Just been in the house.

Me: Oh... okay. How are you and [friend's name]?

Them: Good.

Me: Have you heard about what happened with...?

Them: Yeah, that's so crazy.

Me: Yeah, it is...

Silence.

Me: Alright... I'll call you soon.

Them: Okay, bye.

Conversation over.

After a few conversations like this, I started noticing a pattern. Every interaction seemed to follow the same script. We'd greet each other, I'd ask the questions, receive little to nothing back, bring up a topic to keep the conversation going, they'd engage for a moment, and then... nothing.

After getting tired—and honestly bored—of carrying what was supposed to be a two-person conversation, I started to wonder if the problem wasn't just the conversations I was having, but conversation itself. Eventually, the question became impossible to ignore:

When did conversation become so boring? More importantly, why did it feel like no one could hold one anymore?

When I started looking for answers, I expected to find some clear explanation for why good conversation seemed to be disappearing. Instead, I was surprised to find almost nothing. There were endless articles offering tips on communication skills or blaming social media, but very few that stopped to ask the question I was really interested in: Why does conversation itself feel like it's waning?

So I decided to start at the beginning. Before trying to understand what conversation has become, I wanted to understand what it once was. In my mind, today's conversation is the iPad kid version of conversation—easily distracted and rarely asked to sit with anything for very long. It made me wonder whether there was a time when conversation was expected to be richer and more meaningful than it is today. To answer that question, I had to go backward.

As historian Michèle Cohen explains, “conversation in seventeenth-century France was considered the highest expression of the social, linguistic, and aesthetic ideals of politesse.” Rather than a casual part of everyday life, conversation was regarded as an art worth studying, refining, and practicing. Manuals and treatises were written not only to teach people how to converse, but how to do so well.

Among those who sought to define its principles was Antoine Gombaud, Chevalier de Méré, in his essay De la Conversation. Méré argued that conversation should be "pure, free, decorous, and—most often—lighthearted," yet he believed its greatest challenge was "to think clearly about the subject at hand and to know how to express each point distinctly, using the best tone and the most pleasing manner." His point was that conversation was not simply the act of speaking. It was an intellectual and social discipline that required clear thinking, careful expression, and consideration for others. Speaking well meant contributing something meaningful rather than simply saying whatever came to mind. Looking back at Méré's work, it becomes clear that conversation was regarded as something far greater than a vehicle for exchanging information.

Finding this history answered my first question. There was, in fact, a time when conversation was slower and more intentional. But that answer immediately raised another question: if this was once the expectation, what happened?

It's easy to point to social media or the internet as the reason, and while they have undoubtedly changed the way we communicate, I feel something deeper has shifted. Reading Méré, I realized that what stood out wasn't his emphasis on manners or etiquette, but on freedom. He imagined conversation as a place where people could think aloud and trust that another person would engage with those thoughts in good faith. Conversation wasn't simply about exchanging information or proving a point; it was about exploring ideas together. So often, when the familiar script runs out, silence takes over. It's as if we've forgotten how to explore a conversation once we've exhausted the expected topics. Have we become so concerned with saying the right thing that we've stopped saying what we genuinely think?

Has the standard of conversation shifted from mutual curiosity and respectful freedom to performance?

After I sat down for coffee with my friend, I thought I was looking for a better conversation. Looking back, I don't think that was what I was searching for at all. I was looking for another person willing to enter the conversation with me. Maybe good conversation hasn't disappeared. Maybe we've just stopped fully showing up to it. We leave behind our curiosity, our uncertainty, and our half-formed ideas, replacing them with safe responses and familiar scripts. Or perhaps this is simply the answer I arrived at after following a question that refused to leave me alone.

What do you think? Has the standard of conversation really changed, or have we?